What’s Wrong With The World

I have received the following letter of enquiry from Aidan Mackey, who has authorised me to publish it here:

” Several years ago Rosemary, one of our daughters (I have mentioned, I think, that in any town of over 30,000 inhabitants I have a daughter………) sent me a photograph of G.K.C. walking in a wide, clean street.    R.  lives in Perth, Western Australia, and  is a producer for Australian radio.   The photograph was obtained by her from:  ”Patrick Bowen, our antiques expert on the programme.   His grandfather knew G.K.C.and visited the family home in Ramsgate (possibly the location of the photo) many times.”

            That it was taken in Ramsgate, Kent, seems quite plausible (insofar as can be anything said by daughters) for the pavement is wide and clean, and looks nothing like either London or Beaconsfield.    I have a vague feeling of having heard that G.K. and Frances did holiday there  –but this is one of my problems;  I have talked to so many people that I have half-memories or ‘feelings’ without being able to offer evidence.   But I have never heard any suggestion that G.K. or anyone in the Chesterton family at that time, had a home there.   I have, of course, checked the autobiography and all the biographies, and feel that it would hardly have escaped William Oddie’s recent study.

            Any suggestions or ideas would be gratefully received.”

Well, My book (Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy) though biographical focussed mainly on the development of Chesterton’s ideas, so a visit to Ramsgate might not have been mentioned, even if I had known anything about such a visit, which I didn’t.

So: if anyone knows anything,  click on to ‘No Comments’ and let us know.

–William Oddie