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From
The Surrey Shore . .
.
The Newsletter of the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore Vol. 2, No. 6, December 2003
****A Scion
Society for All Who Enjoy Sherlock Holmes in All His Manifestations!****
A Victorian Tea, that is.
Yes, the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore are returning on January 4 to the
Hamilton County Historical Society Jail Museum, in Noblesville, Indiana, just a
hop, skip, and a jump north of Indy by Hansom cab (assuming, of course, that
yours is pulled by a very large, strong bullfrog). We’ll once again be hosting
a Victorian tea in celebration of the birthday of the Master Sleuth of Baker
Street, Sherlock Holmes (albeit a day early, based on the determination that
Holmes was born on Twelfth Night, which is January 5 on most calendars). Your
Rivals officers will be providing tea, scones, toppings, and
cumber-and-cream-cheese mini-sandwiches for your dining pleasure. (And we
encourage anyone else who would like to contribute to bring their own scones,
crumpets, petit fours, or other goodies as well.) For the entertainment portion
of the program, our own Barker will read his full paper on “Crime in Victorian
London,” postponed from last meeting, and also will present a special
Sherlockian holiday song written just for the occasion. For those who’ve never
been to the Jail Museum, a tour of the premises will be available, and we will,
of course, engage in our standard Sherlockian toasts as well as in great
Sherlockian fellowship. We also want to get a group photo of our scion members,
if possible, so we encourage everyone attending who can to wear either
Sherlockian or Victorian dress. (This is, of course, totally optional.
We’ll warmly welcome you no matter what you are—or are not—wearing . . . within
reasonable limits, of course.) For additional details and directions, see the
“Coming Meetings” section at the end of this newsletter.
***
As you receive this newsletter, Christmas is either imminent or just past, depending on how fast the post office makes its deliveries this year. (I recall one year, long ago, mailing a letter to Texas two days before Christmas and it arriving the next day, on Christmas Eve! I was dumbfounded.) So I wish to all of you who receive this newsletter, via postal or e-mail (or peruse it on the Web) a very merry Christmas from your humble officers of the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore. (And if you don’t celebrate Christmas for any reason, I wish you well on whatever other holiday you may celebrate at this time of year, although I’m not inclined toward political correctness so much as to substitute a mere, generic “Holiday Greetings” in place of the traditional, Victorian “Merry Christmas,” so I hope you’ll forgive me on that.) We have a few presents for you to unwrap this issue, so let’s get started, shall we?
Last year, I delved into what
Canonical information we have about Barker, Holmes’ hated rival upon the Surrey
Shore, and what we may reasonably (or even whimsically) deduce from that rather
sparse data. (Check our Web site for the entire article, along with excerpts
from the Canon about Barker.) In this issue, I’m going to describe a somewhat
more fictional Barker (for all those who still like to think of the Canon as
fact about the very real Sherlock Holmes, as recorded by Dr. Watson and
marketed by Conan Doyle, the “literary agent”). This version of Barker is one
that I created more than 15 years ago as an NPC (nonplayer character) for a
London-based scenario that I was writing for my Cthulhu By Gaslight RPG
(role-playing game) supplement for the Call of Cthulhu RPG (the former
published by Chaosium in 1986 and winner of two industry awards, incidentally).
This scenario was set in London in 1893 to contrast the Yorkshire-based
scenario that was first written for the supplement. In it, I needed a foil for
the players—a London-based detective to spur them on, in case they were getting
bogged down in the investigation, by competing with them in gathering clues and
so on. (Most RPG players go the extra mile in creativity when they have
competition in the game.) I couldn’t really use Holmes because of the 1893 date
of the scenario (during the Great Hiatus of 1891-4), plus the Yorkshire scenario
(“The Yorkshire Horrors”) had already used some fictional background info for
the Great Detective as suggested by eminent Sherlockian William S.
Baring-Gould. So I didn’t want to overdo it.
I’d always been fascinated by
the scant Canonical clues offered about Holmes’ hated rival, Barker (as you can
no doubt determine, based on the name we chose for this scion), and I figured
that, if Sherlock Holmes thought him competent enough to consider him a rival,
Barker would undoubtedly prove a good choice as the NPC detective in the
scenario. (And besides, since the Canon offered so few facts about the man, he
was close enough to a blank slate that I could take off in almost any direction
that I wanted to with him and fit him more closely into the Lovecraftian scenario
than I ever could Holmes, with his disdain of all that was supernatural.) So
Barker it was (and even if it wasn’t quite the Canonical Barker, this variation
was close enough for my purposes).
First, of course, I determined
that this Barker was, unlike Holmes, open to the possibility of the
supernatural—it did not necessarily fall under his definition of the
“impossible” to be eliminated before determining that, whatever was left,
however improbable, must be the truth. On the other hand, I didn’t want him to
be the type taken in by every spiritualistic charlatan running around London
claiming to be a medium. I decided that Barker had had a personal encounter
with the supernatural—a brush with the much deeper cosmic horrors of the
Cthulhu Mythos. (This was, after all, for a Cthulhu By Gaslight
scenario.) As a result, he was aware of things that existed beyond what our
normal senses and ideas of “common sense” told us was possible. (Somewhat
later, as part of his childhood background, I decided that he’d witnessed a
manifestation of the Great Old One Ithaqua, the Windwalker—also known as the
Wendigo—while growing up in Canada, the child of British immigrants.) So Barker
had studied the occult to determine what of it was mere nonsense and what was
frighteningly real (in the game, of course). He’d studied such Lovecraftian
tomes as the Necronomicon, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and one that
a member of my gaming group had thought up, The Countenance of Evil (although
I’d determined its author was Baron Von Knigge of the infamous Bavarian
Illuminati and that it told of the hidden occult rituals of that secret
society). So Barker became a sort of occult detective, similar to the Edwardian
character Carnaki, the Ghost Hunter.
I needed a first name, too, for Barker if he was going to be a
character in an RPG scenario. (Unlike in written stories, players can ask
questions—and one was bound to ask for Barker’s full name.) Not even at the
time remembering the other Barker in the Canon (Cecil)—or at least not
consciously—I decided that Barker’s first name was Cyrus. (Which is why you see
this letter signed as “C. Barker.”) I just picked it because I thought it
sounded appropriately Victorian. (Amazingly, I learned in the past year that
another writer who has written a soon-to-be published novel about a different
version of Barker had also chosen the name of Cyrus for his character, although
he’d derived it partly from the Biblical Cyrus, king of Persia, and partly from
the initial of the other Canonical Barker. One of those comic coincidences, I
suppose.)
I also decided that Barker, to
be an effective detective, was very good at tracking. (Despite the Barker of
the Canon being spotted by Watson while following the doctor from Amberley’s.)
This is where I devised his background of growing up in Canada (and Western
Canada at that), as it was one of the few places in the Empire where he could
learn how to track and scout from Native Americans. (Which would perhaps also
fit Watson’s account, if Barker was a more skilled tracker in the wild than in
the city.) And I decided that he’d been inspired to become a detective by
becoming involved in a case with the Pinkertons, who were also active in Canada
then. From this, I tied in the Canonical Barker’s military appearance, as
described by Watson with him having been at Khartoum with General Gordon in
1885. (See this issue’s “Victorian Trivia” for more information on the General
and the situation at Khartoum.) His skills as a scout enabled Barker, on
Gordon’s orders, to slip through the Mahdist lines with a message for the
expected relief expedition—although too late to save the British garrison in
the city. (Later, I extended Barker’s tour in the British army to a period in
India during the British Raj, where he’d learned even more about the occult, as
manifested in that country.) After Gordon was killed, Barker left the army,
disillusioned by the government’s inaction that led to the General’s death. (I
also decided that his shaded glasses were the result of a military accident in
which a cannon blew up in his face, making his eyes extra sensitive to the
light.)
As for Barker’s Masonic tie pin in the Canon, I decided that the detective had, indeed, joined a Masonic Lodge at one point, as did many Britons during Victoria’s reign. But in the world of Cthulhu By Gaslight, the Masons turned out to be more than just a fraternal organization and were actually part of the grand conspiracy envisioned in the Holmes movie Murder By Decree and other works of fact and fiction and themselves incorporated many trapping of the occult. Barker, once aware of such roots, quit the Lodge. But he did retain the pin because it often prompted others who remained in the Lodges to be much more open around their “brother Mason,” which would be a boon for a detective. I added a number of additional details to Barker’s “back story” and his current history in the game, such as the fact that he carried for his personal weapon a LeMat pistol—a revolver holding nine regular shots but with an extra single shotgun barrel below the main barrel that could also be triggered. (I’d read about the gun some years earlier and had just liked the way it worked—plus, it was a nasty surprise for any players engaging in a firefight with the detective and counting the number of rounds he was returning.)
Additional
Details—Creating a Chronicler
I added a number of other
details about the detective—for example, like Holmes, he was a master of
disguise, which required quite a bit of ingenuity considering his heavy mustache.
(This was so that the players might run across him unknowingly after already
encountering the detective earlier in the game.) But most of all, I decided
that, like Holmes, Barker needed his own Watson. Rather than having to worry
about slipping up on Britishisms vs. Americanisms in any narration by Barker’s
own Boswell, I decided to borrow a trick from August Derleth’s Solar Pons
stories, in which Pons’ chronicler, Dr. Parker, was an American. (That way,
Derleth, being an American himself, didn’t have to worry about the narration of
the Pons stories not sounding British enough.) But I didn’t want to go so far
as to make him another doctor. Instead, I did what Doyle did—I drew upon my own
profession and made Barker’s Watson a journalist. (Close enough to an
editor—and it gave him more opportunity to engage in adventure in the streets
of London.) Drawing again on my own background, I made him a native of
Indiana—a graduate of Indiana University—and an English major who’d read the
Holmes stories in imported copies of the Strand and, as is true of so
many of us, became entranced with them. He decided to move to London on
graduation and work as a freelance journalist, perhaps eventually writing
stories of his own—an ambition helped along by his chance meeting with a
certain London private detective named Cyrus Barker. He needed a name, and I
didn’t want to go so far as to use any variation on my own (he would, of
course, be his own man). As I’d always liked Doyle’s journalist, Edward Malone,
in The Lost World and other Professor Challenger stories, I chose a
variation of his name: Edmund Mallory. (It was a few years later that I read
the classic steampunk novel The Difference Engine, with its similarly
named protagonist, Edward Mallory, but despite the similar names, I chose to
retain mine for Barker’s chronicler.)
These details worked out, I
wrote up my scenario—a tale of horror and intrigue in which Jack the Ripper
appeared to have returned in 1893 . . . or did he? Perhaps it was something
even worse—yet another incursion of the Cthulhu Mythos into Victorian England .
. .? Unfortunately, the scenario ended up far too long to publish in the
supplement itself. I hoped that I could use it later on, in another book of Gaslight
scenarios, but at some point, one of the game’s original creators decided that
he’d rather not see an occult explanation for the Ripper, so it never saw
publication . . . (sigh). But at least it’d spurred me to create one of many
possible versions of Holmes’ hated rival upon the Surrey Shore. And who
knows—like so many things one creates but never uses, perhaps I’ll one day be
able to recycle it in another form. (I did mention the detective and his
chronicler in a short, three-part teaser essay in another scion’s newsletter a
few years later, so at least my Barker did get some exposure.) And if I
do manage to work him in somewhere, you can be sure that you’ll be among the
first to hear about it, right here in this newsletter.
In case you didn’t notice, the e-mail
address to use to send e-mail to our vice president, Russell, has changed. (See
the last paragraph of this newsletter for the new address.) The old address
apparently was not checked often enough (or the provider mistakenly thought so)
and the address lapsed (a problem with Hotmail addresses). In attempting to
recreate the original address, we found that someone else had taken it. As this
address was specific to our scion names, we suspect sinister motives behind its
appropriation (most likely an agent of the sinister Baron Gruner), and we’ve
advised Hotmail of this situation. But if anyone has e-mailed the old Rival
Russell Hotmail address in the past few months, you need to resend to the new
one (again, at the end of this newsletter). And if you’ve received a message
from that address in the past few months, it’s bogus, so disregard it. (Better
yet, forward it to abuse@hotmail.com and let them know that it’s being used
under false pretenses.) A shame that, for some people, such shenanigans (solely
to discredit and inconvenience others) take the place of mature and aboveboard
discussions of differences . . .
A Brief Note on Twelfth
Night (vs. Twelfth Day)
As noted in the section on the coming meeting at the
top of this newsletter, we’ve chosen to break with standard Sherlockian
tradition of celebrating January 6 as Sherlock Holmes’ birthday and instead to
do so on January 5th, which, according to most calendars, is the
actual date of Twelfth Night (January 6 being Twelfth Day). We’ve done so based
on (slight but significant) Canonical evidence brought to light by the eminent
Sherlockian William S. Baring-Gould. (For details, see the article on our Web
site about Holmes’ birthday.) For those who are not aware, the celebration of
Twelfth Night (and Day) is where we get the old Christmas carol, “The Twelve
Days of Christmas.” The first day of Christmas is, of course, Christmas Day.
The 12th day, counting from December 25, is January 5—Twelfth Night.
(Unless you want to start counting with the day after Christmas, in
which case you do get to Twelfth Day, on January 6.) But why quibble? Does it
really matter whether one celebrates Holmes’ birthday on the 5th or
6th of January? We think not, although some who are overly tradition
bound may disagree. So let them celebrate what day they want, and we’ll
celebrate when we choose. ’Tis the season to be jolly, after all, not
contentious. And so, to all of you out there, I wish a very Merry Christmas and
a Happy New Year (and a joyous Twelfth Night).
On that festive note, I close this year-end epistle.
Till next year, I remain, as always, ever yours . . .
—C. Barker,
Esq.
***
A dedicated cadre of Hated
Rivals gathered at the Warren Library on Sunday, November 9, for our final
meeting of 2003. Despite technical difficulties that prevented the showing of
the scheduled videos and a mix-up regarding the time for the meeting by the
library’s scheduling service, the Rivals persevered and snatched victory out of
the jaws of defeat (as opposed to de-feet of Jaws, which I guess would really
be fins). Even with the many problems (which we suspect were engineered by some
rogue the likes of a Josiah Amberley or, more likely, a Baron Gruner), the
Hated Rivals still managed to provide the best Sherlockian fellowship for the
money that was available that—or any other—weekend (since, of course, our
meetings are, as always, free to all). Unfortunately, because of the unexpected
scheduling problem, our speaker wasn’t able to complete his talk on “Crime in
Victorian London,” so that presentation was rescheduled for our January future
meeting. (So if you missed it, you still have another chance to learn about the
man on whom Conan Doyle modeled the sinister professor Moriarty—and his real
rival, on whom Doyle based Baron Gruner [which is why, no doubt, the evil Baron
did all that he could to sabotage our meeting—the fiend!].) But the Rivals
emerged triumphant, through not only heartfelt Sherlockian camaraderie but a
reliance on the true spirit behind the Holmes stories—that of truth and justice
for all. (And if that sounds a little overblown, well, you just had to be
there. Just be thankful I didn’t add “. . .and the British way!”) We also
filled in details of next year’s meeting schedule and programs, sketched out
just a few weeks earlier at an officers’ meeting at the Cracker Barrel
restaurant (an establishment that’s not quite Sherlockian, but is very much in
the spirit of the 19th century.) Re-energized, the Rivals left
looking forward to another great year in 2004.
***
Her Majesty’s armed forces were
engaged in a series of colonial wars throughout the Victorian Age (although the
only major land war Britain fought was the Crimean War against Russia in
1854-5). A number of these occurred in the years prior to the Holmes stories,
and some receive mention in the Canon — most notably the Second Afghan War, in
which Watson was wounded (see the article on our Web site, “Afghanistan in the
Victorian Age,” for more about that conflict), and the Indian Mutiny, which
figured in the back story for The Sign of Four. In our blurb about the
G.A. Henty stories in the “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere” section that follows,
we mention two more: Khartoum and Pekin (or Peking, for those of you only up on
the more modern spelling—before it became Beijing, of course).
The seige of Khartoum took place in 1884-5, in what is now the Sudan. (At the time, it was part of British-controlled Egypt.) The local tribes were engaged in an uprising under the Mahdi, who fancied himself the final Imam of Islam, destined to free all Mohammedans (as Muslims were known in the West at the time) from foreign rule and to kill all the infidels who refused to accept Islam. The British government sent General Charles “Chinese” Gordon to Khartoum to evacuate the city to avoid a conflict. Instead, the flamboyant soldier—a dedicated Christian—chose to stand against the Mahdi. He hoped that Britain would send a relief force once it saw Khartoum surrounded and besieged by the Mahdist forces (known as the “Answar”). Because of Gordon’s defiance of his orders, Gladstone, who was prime minister at the time, delayed sending relief until public outcry in favor of the popular hero forced his hand. Unfortunately, the relief expedition arrived at Khartoum too late—the Mahdi had taken the city and slain Gordon. (Legend has it that Gordon emptied a Nordenfeldt machine gun from the rooftop of his headquarters and then faced down the enemy with his sabre until he was finally killed.) The disaster resulted in the fall of Gladstone’s Liberal government, and it wasn’t until 13 years later that British forces under General Herbert Kitchener finally put down the revolt in 1898 and reclaimed the region for the Empire.
The siege of Western embassies and consulates at
Peking took place in 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, when Chinese forces,
spurred by the Boxers (so dubbed for the society’s Chinese name meaning,
loosely, Fists of Righteous Harmony), surrounded and attacked the Western
delegations. A joint Western expeditionary force consisting of contingents from
the British, Russian, American, French, Italian and other armies landed in
China and fought their way to Peking to relieve the siege. As a result, a
rising nationalist movement was defeated in China (known throughout most of the
Victorian Age as the “sick man of Asia”) and Western influence was preserved.
(According to some accounts, British forces were the first to break the siege
and enter the embassies; others give the honor to American Marines.)
As a side note, the shortest war in history was
fought between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896. It lasted a scant 30 minutes and
consisted of a bombardment by British naval forces and a quick surrender by the
rebel forces that had just seized power in the tiny African protectorate.
***
I Hear of Sherlock
Everywhere!
Shire Books, in England, publishes a number of
excellent books and booklets about Victorian England (among other topics). One
of their latest offerings is a booklet entitled The Victorian Public
House. It is of special interest to Sherlockians in that the cover of the
booklet displays the façade of the Sherlock Holmes Pub, in London. (Despite
this modern-day recreation on the front, the booklet does provide an apt
surveys of actual Victorian-era pubs.) It retails for ₤4.50 and is
available from Shire books. (find them on the Web at www.shirebooks.co.uk) as
well as from Amazon.UK and other overseas outlets.
Old House Books, publishers of the Dickens’s and Baedeker’s London guidebooks described in past newsletters (as well as maps and other books) have four new books of interest to Sherlockians and other aficionados of the Victorian era: Murray’s Guide to Modern London, 1860 (₤13.99); London Stories, 1910 (₤11.99); The Confessions of a Poacher, 1890 (₤12.99) and Enquire within upon Everything, 1890 (₤14.99). The first is a guidebook to the great capital during the mid-Victorian years (a bit early for Sherlockians, perhaps); the second is a series of bios of London folk that first ran in London magazines at the end of the Edwardian years; the third is self-explanatory; while the last is an encyclopedia of all kinds of everyday things in Britain, circa 1890. You can order these titles from Old House Books (on the Web at www.oldhousebooks.co.uk; shipping varies depending on how many books you buy, so check the Web site) or from Amazon.UK, although the latter takes from 4-6 weeks and requires a ₤1.99 special order fee. (Note: You’re best off ordering these books online by credit card, as the exchange rate from pounds to dollars fluctuates.)
The hardback compilation of League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II, hit the stores the third week of
November, almost a month earlier than expected (a welcome change from the often
months late releases of the series), collecting all six issues of the second
series in a classy format suitable for displaying in your home library
(provided, of course, you’re not one of those who think graphic novels
“beneath” you). All the text and graphics from the series’ six issues are
present, including the fantastical travelogue (although the Victorian ads, real
and fake, are not). If you missed the series itself or just prefer something
more enduring, you can find it in specialty comic book stories and can order it
online at Amazon.com and similar outlets (and probably from most regular
bookstores).
Speaking of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
the DVD of the movie is out now. (No word on when the VHS will be available,
for those of us who still cling to a VCR instead of buying a DVD player.) If
you missed the movie at the theaters, we recommend that you either buy or rent
the DVD.
Ruse, the very well-written and excellently drawn
CrossGen comic featuring the Holmes-like detective Simon Archard, ended its run
this month with its final issue, #26. Last month’s issue (#25), however, would
be of even more interest to Sherlockians than the usual run of the series: It
featured on its cover another character from the series (Theophillis Dare, an
adventurer who’d appeared in a story arc several issues ago) decked out in
deerstalker, Inverness cape, calabash pipe, and magnifying glass—the only thing
spoiling his Sherlock Holmes look being his pencil moustache. Simon Archard,
the normal Sherlockian-like protagonist of the series stood in the background
in bowler and pinz-nez, looking very “Watsonish.” The story inside, featuring
Dare as the detective and Archard as his assistant, turned out to be a penny
dreadful, penned by Dare and being read by Archard’s own assistant, Emma
Bishop. (And, of course, Sherlock Holmes never existed in the Ruse
universe.) The series’ cancellation is a great loss of a well-written and
fascinatingly conceived series. Although it’s probably too late to do anything
about it, anyone who wishes to protest the cancellation can still write to
letters@crossgen.com (putting “Ruse” in the subject line). In the meantime,
three compilations of the series’ first 15 issues remain available in two
different formats—full-size trade paperback and in a “digest” paperback as
well. Retail price is about $15 for each full-sized collection, about $12 for
the digests. To obtain these only reminders of this excellent series, check
with specialty comic book stores or search for Ruse at the online
bookstores. (No word yet on whether the remainder of the series will appear in
collected form.)
An episode of UPN’s Jake 2.0 this past fall
included a Sherlockian reference. In confirming that he’d memorized a list of
safe houses in Berlin on an undercover mission to infiltrate a hacker cabal,
the title character named one as “221B Bakerstrasse” (German for Baker Street).
The Landmarks & Liberty Vision Forum
Family Catalog for 2004 includes a two-page spread, “The Boy Detective,”
featuring a young lad clad in a deerstalker and with a magnifying glass held up
to his eye (which appears, of course, quite huge). The pages include items such
as the Mystery Detective Forensic Science Kit ($22). You can obtain a copy of
the catalog by contacting the Vision Forum at 1-800-440-0022 or by visiting its
Web site at www.visionforum.com. The catalog also lists a biography of and
several books by G.A. Henty, a renowned 19th-century writer of boy’s
novels, including two set during the years of the Sherlock Holmes stories (The
Dash for Khartoum, 1885; and With the Allies to Pekin, 1900).
The animated Sherlock Holmes in the 23rd
Century is no longer running as part of the FOX weekend lineup, but if you
check your local listings, you may find it running in syndication on another
station. In the Indianapolis area, for example, it runs daily at 2:30 p.m. on
WTTV Channel 4, the local WB affiliate. (Although this may not be the case in
all areas, so you may need to engage in a bit of detective work of your own to
find it.)
The final panel of the 12/12/03 installment of the Garfield
comic strip featured the feisty feline in deerstalker and brandishing a
magnifying glass. His response to owner Jon’s declaration that he’d already
purchased and hidden Garfield’s Christmas presents? “Then the game’s afoot!”
(What else?)
Timeless Costumes, of Alpine, CA (P.O. Box 2442,
91903), offers a complete Sherlock Holmes costume, consisting of an Inverness
caped cloak, a deerstalker, and long neck scarf, for $229 + $9 s&h. (Not a
bad price considering that a local tailor once was asking $200 for just the
Inverness.) The company also offers a 10% group discount on orders of three or
more. For more information, write to the address above, call 1-800-515-5560 or
check the company’s Web site at www.timelesscostumes.com. (The color brochure
of the Holmes costume also pictures a large magnifying glass with the
deerstalker, but as it’s not mentioned in the description, it’s probably not
included.)
***
Coming Meetings!
Following are the details of our
upcoming meeting, plus the dates and tentative information about all our
meetings for 2004. (Check our Web site or our Indianapolis Star Web page
for updates.) So set these dates aside to join the Hated Rivals at the
following soirées:
A Victorian Tea, Reprised!
Sunday, January 4, 2003, 1-4
p.m.
Hamilton Country Historical
Society Jail Museum
810 Conner Street (on the
Town Square)
Noblesville, Indiana
Directions and Details: From Indianapolis, take I-69 N. (accessible from I-465 on the NW side) to S.R. 37 to Noblesville; turn left at State Road 32 and continue on to the Town Square (State Road 32 becomes Conner Street in Noblesville). The museum is on the SW corner of the Square. Parking is available all around the square. The program will include a sumptuous Victorian tea, a paper on Victorian crime, a holiday song, a tour, and lots of great Sherlockian fellowship. Hope to see you there!
And don’t forget to mark
your calendar for next year’s other great meetings . . .
Sunday, March 14, 2004: The Game’s Afoot!
(Literally!)
Saturday, May 15, 2004: Sitting in an English Garden
Sunday, July 11, 2004: Barker Birthday
Bash—Afternoon on the Canal
September (exact date to be
determined): Death
and the Victorians
Saturday, November 13, 2004:
A.C. Doyle
Mini-Film Fest
(Note: Dates and
programs tentative and subject to change as circumstances
change—but we’ll try to stick to these as much as possible!)
****
For
more information, contact us at P.O. Box 26290, Indianapolis, IN 46226-0290; or
send us e-mail at postmaster@surrey-shore.freeservers.com or at
rivalrussell221B@hotmail.com. (And don’t forget to venture online to check out
our Hated Rivals Web site at http://surrey-shore.freeservers.com or our Indy
Star Web page at http://community.indystar.com/928/ for recent updates.)
See you again in two months, back on the ol’ Surrey Shore, where the game’s
always afoot! (But you already knew that—right?)