Posted by Mike Dennis on October 28, 2012 at 04:01:31 user MTD.
In Reply to: Re: Crab Island's and Gibber's real-life prototypes posted by Mike Field on October 27, 2012 at 15:58:00:
Very interesting, the sources of these things are fascinating and improve the reading of the books.
I have to admit this area is tricky for me, I was frightened as a small child (7 or 8) by a monkey much like Gibber and have had an active dislike of primates of any sort since (50 years on!) It's hard to be to enthusiastic about Gibber in the books, as for it being responsible for the destruction of the Wild Cat in ML - I would have left the thing to its own devices while I escaped!
The name change is very interesting; my ex-wife told me that as a child she played a game with her younger brother which involved him pretending to be 'Jacko monkey'. Where this name came from I don't know, neither she nor her brothers were readers of AR and I can't imagine them or their parents having any of Knight's books. A curious coincidence for me!