Tortoise tales of the unexpected
QUESTION R. V. Jones’s 1978 book Most Secret War includes a man lowering tortoises of increasing size over a balcony to convince the woman living below that her pet was growing rapidly. Was this the inspiration for the 1990 Roald Dahl story Esio Trot? In 1978, Roald Dahl delivered a speech to a group of students visiting from Wright State University, Ohio, and explained his inspiration for what became Esio Trot:
‘My eldest daughter has a flat in London. It’s on the third floor, and it has a balcony outside. not long ago, I was standing on that balcony, leaning over the railings and looking down to the balcony on the floor below, where there lives an old lady called Mrs Shrimpton.
‘Mrs Shrimpton keeps a pet tortoise. In the summer it stays in a box on her balcony. In winter, it is taken indoors, where it hibernates for five months.
‘So, I stood leaning over the balcony staring at Mrs Shrimpton’s tortoise in its box below me. And quite automatically, almost subconsciously, my mind began to niggle around with a little story about that particular tortoise . . .’
R. V. Jones’s book relates a wellestablished story concerning Baltimore experimental physicist, inventor and inveterate practical joker Robert Williams Wood (1868-1955), known internationally for his work in optics and spectroscopy.
Wood made many inventions in various fields and important contributions to the fields of ultrasound and biophysics, developing the Wood light for generating ultraviolet radiation.
His japes were legendary. As a youth, he would spit into puddles while dropping in sodium surreptitiously, causing an explosion and startling passing Baltimore residents.
In 1910-11 and 1913-14, he made two visits to Europe. In Paris, where he lodged in the home of a lady who kept a pet tortoise, he bought several tortoises of different sizes and exchanged them every few days, making it appear that the tortoise was growing at a tremendous rate.
The landlady told Wood and he suggested she contact the Press. He later ‘ shrank’ the tortoise by reversing the process. This story is usually attributed to Wood, but the 1953 book The Complete Practical Joker by H. Allen Smith has the following: ‘ I asked Charlie MacArthur ( U. S. playwright and screenwriter) what he considers to have been the best allaround practical joke. He spoke of several, but he seemed to favour the story of Waldo Peirce and the turtle . . .’ He then relates the same scenario.
So, the story was well established before Dahl wrote his tale. It seems probable that he had some notion or memory of it when he was gazing over that balcony.
Penny Tyler, Callander, Stirling.
QUESTION How did the Catskill Mountains in the U.S. come by their unusual name? THE name was first associated with an area around Catskill Creek, which took in the headwaters of the Schoharie Creek.
The name Catskill spread to cover a large area in the south-eastern portion of new York state. Today, they occupy much or all of five counties ( Delaware, greene, Schoharie, Sullivan and Ulster), with some areas falling into the boundaries of southwestern Albany, eastern Broome and southern Otsego counties.
The exact origin of the name ‘catskill’ is unclear. It could be Dutch in origin, appearing at least as early as 1656, when the name was depicted on a map of new Belgium or new netherlands by Adriaen Van der Donk as Landt van Kats Kill. Kill is Dutch for creek and many Catskill streams and rivers have names such as Beaver Kill, West Kill and Bush Kill.
Early maps reveal that streams such as the neversink, Rondout and Scholarie were originally called neversink Kill, Animal magic: Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench in the TV version of Esio Trot Rondout Kill and Schoharie Kill. A popular explanation for the ‘cats’ part is that the mountains were so named because they contained large numbers of wildcats ( bobcats) and mountain lions (catamounts).
T. Morris Longstreth refutes this. In his 1918 book The Catskills, he claims that the name came from Dutch lawyer, landowner and poet Jacob Cats:
‘[Cats] wrote Sinne en Minne Beelden, a collection of moralisations and worldly wisdom, perhaps derived from his own experience, as in the following: “nineteen nay-says o’ a maiden are ha’f a grant.”
‘He turned out 19 volumes of this sort of thing, with poems which a critic of the time declared to be characterised by simplicity, rich fancy, clearness and purity of style, and excellent moral tendency.
‘With a record like that, it’s small wonder that the map-makers, half distraught for names for the myriad brooks of the region, should decide to call one after the grand Pensionary, in the same way they were naming Block Island after Adrian Blok and Kaap May for Admiral May.’
The confusion over the origins of the name have led to variant spellings such as Kaatskill and Kaaterskill, which are still in use. For instance, there is a local magazine called Kaatskill Life.
E. N. Hewson, Cobham, Surrey.
QUESTION Are any of London’s blue plaques incorrect? In 1867, William Ewart MP persuaded the Royal Society Of Arts to erect plaques in London to draw attention to buildings of interest because of their association with famous people. The scheme was later run by the London County Council (1901–65), the greater London Council (1965–86) and English Heritage.
The first plaque was unveiled in 1867 to commemorate Lord Byron at his birthplace, 24 Holles Street, Cavendish Square, though it was brown not blue. The oldest extant plaques were erected in 1875, identifying buildings with napoleon III and the poet John Dryden.
There have been some errors on plaques. A greater London Council blue plaque, unveiled in 1978 to music hall entertainer Arthur Lucan (born Arthur Towle), best known as Old Mother Riley, in Forty Lane in Wembley gives his lifespan as 1887-1954. In fact, he was born in Sibsey, Lincolnshire, on September 16, 1885.
Emma Cons was a social reformer who, in 1880, re-opened the Old Vic Theatre in Lambeth, South London, bringing Shakespeare and opera to working-class people. The gLC erected a plaque to her at 136 Seymour Place, Marylebone, where she worked and organised her campaigns. The plaque gives her lifespan as 1837-1912. In fact, she was born on March 4, 1838.
Peter Dobbs, Twickenham, Middx.