Re: Beckfoot & the not very idle rich


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Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on November 22, 2002 at 17:05:16 from 195.93.33.13 user ACB.

In Reply to: Re: Beckfoot& the idle rich posted by andy bolger on November 21, 2002 at 22:37:07:

May I offer an alternative version, in the spirit of Tarboard, in which Jim is not really the black sheep of the family?

His black sheepishness might be a refusal to join the family firm, cf John Betjeman, or it might merely be his habit of gadding off and disappointing his nieces. But he clearly is no "remittance man".

Beckfoot was surely built by an industrialist in the late C19 - it clearly is that sort of house, a rather grand second home, with its croquet lawn, boathouse, etc., located for the view, not for convenience. He might well have been called Turner, and he might have been Molly and Jim's father, or grandfather. In any event, Jim and Molly were brought up there, by the GA, after some parental catastrophe. It is their family house. Probably entailed to Jim, as the surviving son, so the GA, who has a private income, maybe from some other corner of our putative grandfather's will, departed for Harrogate as soon as Jim got to 21.

It is not necessary to posit that Beckfoot had an estate attached to it
- we are well after the era when land was the principal wealth. But the family are reasonably prominent in the district - the GA calls on a new vicar, to put him right, in SD, and everyone knows Nancy and Peggy.

Bob Blackett married Molly, but was killed in the War. As his widow, she probably had some income from his estate, or a pension, but it made sense for her to live at Beckfoot with her two daughters. This was no problem for Jim, who travelled a lot anyway. I have hypothesised elsewhere that he may have been a journalist, like AR. His interest in mining as an occupation, rather than as a hobby, seems to have been sparked by meeting Timothy, who clearly is a geologist.

From SD and WH, we may conclude that he has a bedroom at Beckfoot, as well as a study there - the houseboat is a place to escape to.

And I conclude that in the straitened circumstances of the idle upper middle classes post WW1, it made sense for Jim and Molly to pool their resources at Beckfoot.




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