Alternate Biggles History: If Ginger Had Done The Married Thing

We have to remember that Biggles and Marie are not the only great romance of the Biggles series. Another, almost as famous couple, are Ginger and Jeanette.

It is Jeanette who nurses Ginger back to health, and it is also Jeanette that Ginger goes on and on about  for the latter half of the book Fails to Return. Algy is inclined to be good-naturedly amused by the whole thing, but Bertie is somewhat annoyed. "Is this a romance or a rescue?" he demands of Ginger. And later, "I don't hold with all these women in the party," he declares, before sharing a story of a fellow pilot who walked into an airscrew because he was looking at a girl. (Really, Bertie! You're letting all your fangirls down!)

The book ends with Ginger and Jeanette spending some time together "walking and swimming" (at least there are no stone benches!), and after that--nothing. Jeanette is never heard of again. Did the two have a falling out? Did they find they had nothing in common and simply drift apart? Or perhaps something along the lines of "Ginger Married" happened?

What would have happened had Ginger married Jeanette?  The war was still on, so it is unlikely that Ginger would have left the squadron to start a family or anything like that. After the war ended, he wouldn't be hanging around waiting to become an air policeman--he would have gone home to be with Jeanette. Would Biggles and Algy be the godparents of his children? What kind of job would Ginger work in to support his family?

I see multiple fics brewing....

Alternate Biggles History: What Would Have Happened To Ginger?

What would have happened to Ginger if he had never run into Biggles and Algy in The Black Peril?

Well, to begin with, he would have been walking for a long, long time (especially if he actually did set out from Yorkshire and was trying to walk to London through Newcastle). Having little or no money on him, he would have no doubt done quite a lot more "food finding" along the way, which would likely have resulted in an arrest sooner or later.

Wearing rags he would have been unlikely to get commissioned into the Royal Air Force, which I believe was his first port of call:

"'What are you going to London for?'
'To join the Royal Air Force. If they won't have me, I'm going to Heath Row to watch the air-liners.'"

--Biggles and the Black Peril

Is "watch" another Ginger-word for "steal"? I wouldn't put it past him!

Either way, I don't see any way that Ginger's life would have been better for not meeting Biggles and Algy. I can think of dozens of scenarios where the inevitable ending is Ginger getting arrested and thrown into jail for being too clever for his own good.

Character Close-Up: Biggles, Algy, and Ginger In WWII

Spitfire Parade opens with three Spitfires landing at 666 and three pilots getting out and walking towards the squadron office.

As always, Biggles is in the lead:

“His step was light and his figure slim, almost boyish, but his bearing was that of a man of experience. His deep-set hazel eyes were never still and held a curious glint, a sort of speculative fire, that seemed to be in keeping with a pale, clean-shaven face upon which the strain of war had graven little lines. His hands, as small and delicate as those of a girl, were nearly lost in the fur of the gloves they carried.”

--Spitfire Parade

Strangely, it isn’t that different from the description of his seventeen year old self. He’s still slim and has hands like a girl’s, and his boyish figure suggests the same delicateness he had in WWI, although he must have grown a bit because he’s no longer below average height. I’m glad to see that his eyes remain the same color (hazel), and that he’s clean-shaven (Biggles with a mustache? Never!). At this point Biggles of course was in his forties, so no surprise that he bears himself as a “man of experience”.

We later learn that he is “Squadron Leader James Bigglesworth, D.S.O., D.F.C., better known in flying circles as ‘Biggles’.”

Excerpt from the graphic novel Spitfire Parade
Image from blogs.birminghammail.co.uk/

Behind Biggles, is, of course, Algy:

“…of similar age and build, but his manner was nonchalant, and his expression one of slightly bored humor.”

--Spitfire Parade

Hmm. No mention of the freckles or “permanent expression of amused surprise” here. Thankfully Johns has decided to make Algy similar in build to Biggles rather than stockier (grrrrr) this time around.

Full title? “Flight Lieutenant the Honorable Algernon Lacey, D.F.C.”. Try saying that five times fast! It must have looked magnificent posted up on the noticeboards.

And lastly, Ginger, who annoyingly has a much longer description that Algy:

“…mere lad, with curious inquiring eyes; but his air was alert, and he carried himself in a way that suggested a degree of self-confidence hardly to be expected in one so young. A wisp or two of ginger hair escaped under the rim of the flying cap which he had just loosened.”

--Spitfire Parade

A “mere lad”? Ginger must have been in his mid-twenties in Spitfire Parade! How old does one have to be to stop being a “mere lad”? I feel as though Johns has got sixteen year old Ginger stuck in his head, except yet again the freckles appear to have vanished with age. As for the self-confidence, well, Ginger always had that in spades, even before he met Biggles, so it’s hardly surprising that he seems to have gotten more of it!

Character Close-Up: Ginger’s First Appearance

Ginger.
Image from biggles.wz.cz/

As mentioned previously in this blog, Ginger’s real name appears nowhere in the 90+ Biggles books. At their first meeting—when Biggles rushes into the railway hut where Ginger is cooking himself a meal of stolen egg and “mixed allsorts”—Biggles refers to the sixteen year old redhead as Ginger, and Ginger he remains to the last.

The first we see (or, to be more accurate, hear) of Ginger is his “shrill treble voice” (presumably his voice hadn’t broken yet at this point). Then Biggles crawls into his railway hut and we get our first ever glimpse of Ginger:

“…into the wide-open eyes of a lad of fifteen or sixteen years of age. He was in rags, dirty beyond description, but above a collarless shirt rose a frank, alert, freckled face, surmounted by a mop of tousled red hair.”

--Biggles and the Black Peril

When the young redhead opens his mouth again, he is full of the Americanisms that are such a wonderful part of the younger Ginger. It’s a great pity he lost them as he got older:

“What is it—cops after you? Say! If you’ve broken out of jail you can count on me.”

--Biggles and the Black Peril

Then Ginger proceeds to utter the sentence that makes me want to hit him over the head:

“Read all about you, of course. You've got a pal named Algy something or other, haven’t you? Where’s he?”

--Biggles and the Black Peril

Algy “something or other”? Show some respect!

Quiz: How Well Do You Know Ginger?

Ginger in Biggles' Second Case.
Image from hebblethwaites.net

How well do you know the youngest member of Biggles' team?

Take this trivia quiz to find out!

Great Biggles Mysteries #1: What Is Ginger’s Real Name?

Cover of Biggles and the Black Peril.
Image links to Amazon. 

It may sound surprising, but nowhere in the 90+ Biggles books can we find a mention of Ginger’s real first name. “Ginger” was a name given to him by Biggles in The Black Peril, a reference to his red hair. He promptly replies to this new nickname with “…but not so much of the Ginger; my name’s Habblethwaite (a misspelling? Or a first name that is curiously similar to his last name?)”, to which Biggles, with his typical “call people by silly nicknames because I can’t be bothered to remember their real names” attitude, counters with, “Let’s stick to Ginger; it’s shorter.”

In every book thereafter, Ginger is referred to as “Ginger” Hebblethwaite, the Ginger sometimes in quotation marks and sometimes not. W.E. Johns either couldn’t be bothered to find out Ginger’s real name, or decided it was too horrible to share with his readers, or maybe it was something dull like Tom or Fred and he decided just to stick with Ginger after all.