Volume 34 Number 4 Summer 2012
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The Journal of the Bootmakers of Toronto Volume 34 Number 4 Summer 2012 Canadian Holmes is published by The Bootmakers of Toronto, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada. Bootprints (editors) are Mark and JoAnn Alberstat, 46 Kingston Crescent, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, B3A 2M2 Canada, to whom letters and editorial submissions should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] Membership and subscription rates Canadian Individual - Cdn$35.00 Canadian Joint (One copy of CH per household) - Cdn$45.00 Canadian Student (Full-time student 16+) - Cdn$25.00 U.S. Individual - US$40.00 U.S. Associate - US$35.00 International - US$40.00 Past Issues of Canadian Holmes, including postage - Cdn$12.00 per copy Further Subscription information and details are available on the society’s website, www.torontobootmakers.com. Business correspondence should be addressed to The Bootmakers of Toronto, PO Box 1157, TDC Postal Station, 77 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5K 1P2 Canada. Copyright © 2012 The Bootmakers of Toronto. Copyright in all individual articles is hereby assigned to their respective authors. Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement Number 40038614, The Bootmakers of Toronto, PO Box 1157, TDC Postal Station, 77 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5K 1P2 Canada. Return postage guaranteed. ISSN 0319-4493. Printed in Canada. Cover: Two Sherlocks. The Sherlock on the right is Bootprint Mark Alberstat, facing actor Kevin Pierson, who portrayed Holmes in Halifax’s Theatre Arts Guild’s presentation of The Reluctant Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes. Mark helped out the community theatre company with costumes and props. Canadian Holmes Volume 34 Number 4 Summer 2012 One hundred and thirty-second issue Contents Canadian Holmes Volume 34 Number 4 Traces of Bootprints 1 By Mark Alberstat We Always Mention Our Sherlock 2 By David Sanders From Mrs. Hudson’s Kitchen 4 By Wendy Heyman-Marsaw A Toast to ACD 5 By Chris Redmond Oh Sinner Man – Where You Gonna Run To? – Sir Arthur 6 and Sir George By Hartley R. Nathan and Clifford S. Goldfarb Congratulations to… Barbara Rusch 14 Strictly Personal: Peter Calamia 15 Conan Doyle on Trial: The Murder of Sherlock Holmes 16 By Bll Mason The Bootmakers have a new website 27 The House of Silk – A Review 28 By Trevor Raymond From The Editor’s Bookshelf 33 By Mark Alberstat Letters From Lomax 34 By Peggy Perdue News Notes From Across the Country 36 Bootmakers’ Diary 38 By Donny Zaldin and Dayna Nuhn RACES OF BOOTPRINTS What if? What if ACD had not written that first story? What if he did not have the family background he did? What if, gasp, Sherlock Holmes, had never entered his thoughts and our good friend Dr. Watson was merely the name of the general practitioner who lives down the street? Without ACD’s amazing story-telling abilities, which he apparently displayed since childhood, you would not be holding this journal, reading this editorial, and casting your mind back to conferences, meetings, presenations, toasts, laughs and good times we have all shared, thanks to Holmes. Would some other writer have developed a detective and sidekick nearly as completely and sucessfully as Doyle did? In Faulks on Fiction, Sebastian Faulks wonders what would happen if Shakespeare had never existed, or simply went into the family business and become a glove maker like his father. The world would indeed be a poorer place without Shakespeare, and it would also be a much different one without Doyle. No Sherlock Hemlock for the youngsters and no instantly recognizable silhouette for the rest of the world and no play for the Halifax club to attend which resulted in the cover image of this issue. In this issue, Cliff Goldfarb and Hartley Nathan examine the life of George Lewis, a Victorian character many of us have probably never heard of but was certainly much more flesh and bone then Moriarty and yet so much lesser known. Bill Mason puts Doyle on trial for the murder of Holmes in an article that starts on page 16. The trial of a real person over the murder of a fictional character? Just as Homer Simpson told his daughter, “Lisa, vampires are make- believe, like elves, gremlins, and Eskimos.” Holmes is as real as we want to make him and, at the moment, quite popular. The recent publication of The House of Silk received much praise and comment in and out of the Sherlockian world. Bootprint emeritus, Trevor Raymond, reviews the book for us. This issue also revives Strictly Personal, with Peter Calamai being the first Canadian Sherlockian to be examined with a new set of questions. Thanks also go out to Dayna Nuhn, who contributed to this issue’s Diary notes. As this is being written in late May, 2012, I pause and realize that Doyle was born 153 years ago, almost to the day. None of this, and so much more, would exist if ACD did not have that magic spark, that creative muse so many years ago. Thankfully, he did. Canadian Holmes Summer 2012 1 We Always Mention Our Sherlock The following song parody, sung to the tune of We Never Mention Aunt Clara, was written by David Sanders and performed by Karen Campbell, who led a singalong at the Blue Carbuncle Awards Dinner, on Jan. 28, 2012. We always mention our Sherlock, His picture hangs proud on our wall, Though he lived in Victoria’s England, He still is alive to us all. Sherlock was born on the sixth of the first, In the year of our Lord ’54, The year that the Light Brigade made its charge, In the ill-fated Crimean War. His father a gentleman farmer by birth, His mother a niece of Vernet, After giving her husband a son to his name, She said there’s one more on the way. Chorus To college went Sherlock as gentlemen do, To earn him a classics degree, But after solving the case of the Gloria Scott, He said, “A detective I’ll be.” He also helped Musgrave by pacing the lawn, Where oak shadow fell on the ground, And as well as Dick Brunton quite dead in the pit, The Stuart regalia he found. Chorus To chambers in Montague Street Sherlock went, And a reading-room ticket obtained, And reading of crimes both old and new, His knowledge of them he maintained. The movement of moon, and the sun and the earth, Of these Sherlock couldn’t care less, For if he filled up his brain with such useless old tripe, It would leave it a cluttered-up mess. Chorus 2 Canadian Holmes Summer 2012 But rooms in that quarter they came at high price, A price Sherlock Holmes couldn’t bear, There was only one way to get out of the red, That was find cheaper chambers and share. Then into the lab at St. Barts Stamford came, With John back from Afghanistan. And there in the lab with Holmes’ blood in the vial, The world’s greatest friendship began. Chorus The cases they shared as the years flew on by, Were many and varied we know, And Holmes would take off at the drop of a hat, With Watson his Boswell in tow. There was Stoner, and Wilson, Bohemian King, They came both the rich and the poor, And all of them climbed up the 17 steps, And knocked on the detective’s door. Chorus But now Sherlock’s gone from his Baker Street rooms, And lives down near Shoreham by Sea, And instead of the murders, and thefts and the like, He’s segregating the Queen Bee. But we in Toronto, and over the Earth, Still are revering his name, For though he is fiction, to us he is real, Because we are playing The Game. Chorus Write for Canadian Holmes! We are looking for articles, reviews, toasts and more. If you are reading these pages, you, too, can write for us. E-mail Mark today Canadian Holmes Summer 2012 3 From Mrs. Hudson’s Kitchen This column is by Mrs. Hudson herself and dictated to Wendy Heyman-Marsaw, a Sherlockian living in Halifax. lthough my gentlemen prefer coffee at breakfast and dinner, they request a cream tea from time to time when expecting a client or a visit from Mr. Mycroft. At Baker Street we dine at 7 unless Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson plan an evening’s entertainment. They usually dine out after the performance and so will take tea at 4 or 5 o’clock. Some foreigners confuse a cream tea with “high tea.” High tea is the evening dinner for the nursery and the middle classes. It is a single course that includes a variety of dishes such as hot or cold meats and pies, stews and eggs. Cream teas were introduced when dinner in affluent households began to be served at increasingly late hours. A proper cream tea is a three-course service. I own a lovely and helpful three-tiered platter stand that permits me to carry all three courses at once up our 17 steps. Tea begins with scones, clotted or Devonshire cream, and preserves. Dainty, crustless sandwiches such as cucumber and watercress, chicken or egg salad are served in small, decorative shapes. These comprise the second, or savoury course, for women. Men prefer more substantial fare such as sliced beef with chutney, ham with mustard, and smoked salmon. Gentlemen’s Relish, an anchovy paste created by Mr. Osborne in 1828 according to a secret recipe, is served on buttered white-bread toast. The third course is a selection of small sweets such as petit fours, thin slices of Dundee or fruitcake.