Out of the four members of Biggles' team, whose relatives would you rather meet? (Assuming that they were alive and could be met, so it's okay to say you'd like to meet Charles Bigglesworth, for example.)
I think I'd like to meet Algy's father (not his mother. Never his mother *shudder*). I have a mental image of someone small and rather absent-minded as Algy's dad. He certainly couldn't have had too strong a personality--I get the feeling that Algy's mother's word was Law in the Lacey household!
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I would like to meet Bertie's mother. We have absolutely no idea at all about her, not a smidgen. But I'd like to think she was quiet and gentle. And I've absolutely no idea why I think that, I just do She'd be totally different to Algy's mother.Of course. Not that she'd be able to tell me much about Bertie. I imagine I'd have to talk to the Nanny about that!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to meet Biggles' mother. We know nothing about her other than she gave birth prematurely to Biggles on some trip she was making with her husband.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know what she was like, and did Biggles take after her, and how did she die - too young, leaving her younger son to grow up with only a father and an absent brother.
We don't really know too much about Bertie's parents, less than all the others. Biggles' parents get some mention, Algy's mother, Ginger's father...but no mention at all of Bertie's parents. I wonder if he also lost one of them at an early age?
ReplyDeleteBigles' mother would probably be like the female version of Algy's dad, as they're siblings.
Bertie mentions his father in 'Scores a Bull.' He and Biggles meet a friend of his father's and there's a bit about Bertie's father being killed on the hunting-field, although it doesn't say how old Bertie was when that happened. There's also a reference to Bertie being a sandy-haired, freckle-faced kid, as discussed in an earlier topic.
ReplyDeleteThere is a very interesting article in one of the magazines about Biggles mother. I can't remember if it is BFA or Biggles & Co. It is by Marie Scofield, who was a child psychologist. I found it convincing.
ReplyDeleteOh... how frustrating not knowing which one. I bet it is in one I haven't got - I have never come across it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, thank you, SJ - I found it - BFA, July 1999, Vol. 1 no. 5. You are right - it is very convincing and really good reading.
ReplyDeleteAbout Algy's dad - I'm on a train due Southwest, so I can't check - but I think Algy somewhere mentions that his governor would not care for one thing or the other. It might be publicity (those infernal journalists...) Probably somewhere in Flies Agan...? So Mother can't be the only person who counts in the household:-)
ReplyDeleteYes, it is in 'Flies Again'. Algy storms into Biggles' bedroom first thing, waving the paper saying, much as you have said. At the time, Biggles doesn't confess that he arranged for it to be there, as bait. He probably deemed it best to keep quiet until Algy had calmed down a bit...
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I always thought it very odd in that story that Biggles didn't tell Algy what he was up to. Surely he knew Algy could be trusted not to let the cat out of the bag.
Lycaea said : About Algy's dad - "So Mother can't be the only person who counts in the household:-)"
ReplyDeleteHe might give in to his wife within the household, though, letting her do what she likes. Outside, where the Lacey name is under scrutiny it would be different.
What does the article about Biggles' mother say? Should make an interesting read.
ReplyDeleteLycaea--you're right about Algy's dad not liking publicity (wonder how he felt when he saw all those newspaper articles about Biggles and Algy that Ginger appears to have read!), but I agree with FB that Algy's father was probably the one who would have told Algy off for getting in the papers, but it was Algy's mother who ruled the Lacey household.
I get the feeling that Biggles does tell Algy of the plan, off stage as it were, in Flies Again. Algy certainly showed no surprise at leaving the chap behind at whatever island they flew him to, so he must have been in on it.
I'd rather like to meet Ginger's dad.
ReplyDeleteHe has always seemed a bit of a dark horse to me. It would be interesting to know what he really thought about Ginger running away to become a pilot. Was he proud of his son - or angry with him for turning his back on his roots?
Did Ginger ever go back to visit - and if so did he no longer fit in with his expensive new clothes and rich new friends?
In 'Black Peril' we are told he gave Ginger a clip on the ear (but we shouldn't judge him for this - even on this site most of us have felt Ginger deserved a clip on the ear on occasions!)And he did write to his son afterwards and they seemed to keep up some sort of correspondence - for a time at any rate, so Ginger can't have resented him that much for it.
It would also be interesting to know if Ginger had any other family. Was he an only child? If so it must have been doubly hard for his father to have him leave in such a way. I always imagined Ginger probably had several siblings, all considerably older than himself. One or two of them were probably already working down the mine with their father by the time Ginger left home, and if so Mr Hebblethwaite would probably be much more tolerant to Ginger leaving than he otherwise might have been.
Either way he'd be sure to have some interesting stories about young Ginger and his early exploits - he stikes me as the sort of boy who would stir things up in a small village.
I seem to remember saying that his father's attitude towards his flying was that if he broke his neck it would be his own fault.
ReplyDeleteI too think that Ginger probably had a lot of siblings, and perhaps didn't really get much attention from his parents for that reason.
While we have Ginger writing to his father and sending postcards to him, there is only one instance where it says he wrote back (to tell Ginger about how if he broke his neck etc), so I wonder if Ginger's dad didn't really care that much what he did?
I don't think it would mean necessarily that Ginger's father didn't care, nor that he wasn't proud of him subsequently. Working-class people in a mining village in the north would be pretty blunt and down-to-earth, and flying might have been perceived as dangerous. Even though going down a mine was probably much more dangerous.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is, I always imagined Ginger to be an only child. Don't know why - but he never mentioned siblings, or his mother.
I rather think that in a 1930s mining village there would have been disdain for anything considered flash. Some people would have been unable to be pleased for Ginger improving his status. His Dad may have been of the opinion that what was good enough for him should be good enough for his son.
ReplyDeleteI think Ginger probably didn't mention his siblings much because of the reasons FB mentioned. If all his siblings thought that his flying ambitions were laughable he wouldn't have wanted to bring them up too much!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIn the ending of the serial in Modern Boy Ginger states that his father hit him, so I've always thought that it was more than just a clip on the ear. And I think he actually wouldn't have run away in the way that he did if his home was happy. And would Biggles and ALgy have supported him in his ambition if they thought he had just run away looking for adventure? Most people would have packed him off home, rather than offering to use their influence to try and get him a job (they did this before Ginger got his letter back).
I've also always thought that Ginger was an only child and his mother was dead. FIrstly, because I think he would have sent postcards to them (WEJ was big on writing home to mother - as we see in the Gimlet books!) and secondly because if he had other siblings who had gone down the mines his dad probably wouldn't have objected so much to him being a pilot.
Also in Orient it is stated that Ginger had almost forgotten the slum in which he had been born. I can see him doing that if home just meant his father who was obviously not a sympathetic person, but I can't see him cutting ties with an entire family.
He does send postcards home--at least in Black Peril he does.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Ginger's dad would have given him that clip on the ear no matter how many of his siblings had gone down into the mines (I myself have often wanted to clip Ginger over the ear...). It's quite likely that Ginger's father got upset with Ginger not because he wouldn't go down into the mines, or because he wanted to do some crazy like go to London and be a pilot, but because Ginger expressed it his cheeky manner, or because he said something disrespectful.
I don't think that Biggles and Algy would have packed Ginger off home after he basically saved Biggles' life. The two of them were after all both very kind, and they weren't the overbearing types who would have put their foot down and insisted that Ginger do anything he really didn't want to. I do seem to remember that in Black Peril Biggles was very insistent about Ginger letting his dad know where he was and how he was doing, so I feel that he would subsequently have made sure that Ginger kept in touch with his people as a result of that.
The very fact that Ginger had "almost forgotten" his home suggests to me that he might have been one of multiple siblings and didn't really get enough attention or love. Had he been an only child he would have found it harder to forget his home and family.
Although I suppose if someone came up with a Ginger earlier years fic I could happily be convinced... :)
I think Ginger was either an only child, or the only one living at home. I think there were not any younger than him. As we do not hear about his mother, she probably died. If there were any other children, his father would have remarried, as men did in those days, so the children could be cared for.
ReplyDeleteI also get the feeling Ginger may have run off from home a few times before he set off on his fateful journey to London, if only for a few days at a time.
ReplyDeleteHe often remarks how he is used to 'scrounging' for food, as he calls it. He wouldn't have done that if there had been plenty to be had at home; and when Biggles and Algy first meet him, he is dressed in rags and filthy - even though he states he only set out from home two days (I think) previously. Conditions then were clearly very tough at home.
I can see Ginger slipping off on his own for days at a time when things got particularly tough or unpleasant at home, 'finding' himself a bit of food; treking off to the nearest town to visit the 'flicks', slipping in via the back window because he couldn't afford a ticket.Escaping into his little world of gangster films and
aeroplanes....
He'd slip home again after a while, get a clip on the ear for running off and then do exactly the same thing again a few weeks later....
This discussion has been a good excuse to reread Black Peril!
ReplyDeleteSoppy, Ginger does sent postcards home in Black Peril but it is specified that he was writing to his father, not his family or even home. And Biggles wasn't insistent that Ginger let his father know how he was - he didn't even know that Ginger had written to him saying that he had a flying job. He was more worried about having to explain to him if something happened to Ginger.
JJ, Ginger has been on the road for 10 days before he meets Biggles and ALgy " For ten days...he had lived by 'scrounging', as he called it, and he had acquired a great deal of experience in the art." I think the rest of your analysis about his pre Biggles life is spot on. It makes you wonder what happened to make him decide to go for good though.
I think JJ's assessment of Ginger's previous behavior is spot on. I can just see Ginger sneaking in through the back when going to the pictures (and then staying there watching movie after movie until the theater closed and he had to sneak out the back again to get out).
ReplyDeleteI agree that Ginger probably did run away a lot, but I don't think he lived in a family that would have noticed his absence too much, to be honest!
PP--I may have misread this, but I think the way Biggles worries about what Ginger's father will say to him [Biggles] if anything happens to Ginger shows that Biggles placed quite a lot of emphasis on family and all that sort of thing. I think if Ginger hadn't been the kind of boy who would write home Biggles would have disapproved of that. (Towards the end of Black Peril he comments that Ginger is a good kid to think of writing home, as many people wouldn't have done the same. Which brings me to another point: how many of us would eb writing home in the middle of thrilling adventures with Biggles and Algy? Either Ginger and his family were fairly close, or he was writing home to boast about his adventures.)
I think it's true that Ginger was probably the only one at home at that time when he ran away. If he had any older siblings they would presumably have married/gone down the mines/got a job somewhere. Leaving home at sixteen wouldn't have been too unusual back then, and in the kind of place where he grew up. I seem to remember that kids back then were quite independent!