Monthly Meeting Minutes – 3rd July 2024

Date of Meeting: 3rd July 2024

 

Location of Meeting:

The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK

 

Attendees:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)

 

Apologies:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) apologised for the lack of meetings over the last few months. He explained that he’d had a lot going on this year including some family issues, a bereavement and hate crime attacks on his home - all of which had left him in pretty bad mental health. Fortunately, the silliness of Holmesiana had been keeping him going. But then one of the belligerent stuck-up gate-keeper Sherlockian old-guard decided to lay into "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) for causing Kate Middleton’s cancer by not having his tongue rammed quite so firmly up her royal dirt-pipe as them. "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) responded by telling this spatula-frotting toss-box exactly what he thought of him, but had always been too polite to say before. This led to "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) realising he was sick of walking the tightrope between the right-wing extremists and the left-wing extremists who have infiltrated our hobby and seem to be constantly on the look-out for ways to be offended. "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) made the decision to step away from Holmesiana until he felt more comfortable dealing with the tinsel-titted fuckwits of our hobby again. Contact from the People Worth Knowing in our community has helped "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) to decide that time is now.

 

Toast:

Paul Thomas Miller (The Entire Canon) toasted The Hound of the Baskervilles by collating some of his favourite lines from the text into a sort of found-poem:

 

Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.

Rain squalls drifted across their russet face.

"Come, sir, come!" cried Frankland, rushing upstairs.

Until we got three-quarters down Regent Street. Then my gentleman threw up the trap, and he cried that I should drive right away to Waterloo Station as hard as I could go.

My dear Holmes!

If we make one false move the villain may escape us yet.

Sufficient for to-morrow is the evil thereof; but I hope before the day is past to have the upper hand at last.

A clever man upon so delicate an errand has no use for a beard save to conceal his features.

Coming down with unsigned warrant. Arrive five-forty. Lestrade.

Uncle and nephew have been murdered.

Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived.

The dog he bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fulham Road.

 

Presentation:

Paul Thomas Miller (The Entire Canon) presented the following:

 

The Watson Family

It has often been noted that we know little of Dr. John H. Watson’s family tree.

We know from the watch reading episode in chapter 1 of SIGN that Watson had a father who had once owned the watch. This father had been dead many years by this time (7^th July 1888). We may also infer that he had a mother. However, we do not know what their names were or where they came from. That said, Dorothy L. Sayer’s essay “Dr. Watson’s Christian Name” lends considerable weight to the argument that he has some Scottish ancestry.

We know from his remarks about the grounds of Pondicherry Lodge in chapter 5 in SIGN (“I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat”) that sometime before he began studying at St. Bart’s he had spent time near the gold mines of Australia. However, it is unclear how prolonged this stay was.

We know from STUD that upon his return to England following the Battle of Maiwand (sometime between late 1880 and early 1882) he “had neither kith nor kin in England”. Either all his relatives were already dead or they lived somewhere other than England – (perhaps Australia or Scotland as indicated by the above statements).

And, referring back to SIGN’s watch reading episode, we know that Watson has a brother – as the watch had passed from his father to his brother. But that’s all we know.

Or is it?

Look again at what Holmes says about the watch:

“Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother."

That’s “eldest brother”. Not just “brother”. For Holmes to bother making the distinction, Watson must have had at least one other “brother”.

Furthermore, if Watson only had one brother who was older than him, Holmes would have referred to Watson’s “elder brother” rather than “eldest”. So, we now know that Watson had at least two brothers and that at least two of his brothers were older than him.

I was tempted, at this point, to put forward the notion that Holmes specifying “brother” meant that Watson might also suggest that Watson also had at least one sister. But, after consideration, I don’t think this follows. It’s not like Holmes would ever have been likely to say something as clunky as “…in the hands of your eldest sibling.” And, at this time in English history, the watch would have been tremendously unlikely to pass into a daughter’s hands anyway. Holmes would have used the word “brother” no matter how many sisters Watson had.

So, how far have I managed to expand our knowledge of Watson? We may know confidently state that Watson had at least two brothers who were older than him and who were either dead or living abroad by 1882. It’s not much, but it’s all you’re getting.

 

Any Other Business:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) vowed to use his diabolical magic powers to destroy his enemies and then laughed like Skeletor for a full nine minutes before going downstairs to make a nice cup of Bovril.