Posted by Alan Hakim on November 13, 2000 at 17:30:29 from 195.44.13.195:
There has been much protest here recently about "censorship" in Mixed Moss. I now learn that my Letter To The Editor, arising out of Robin Anderson's piece about Pigeons in the last issue, has failed to make it into print. This is not censorship, but a simple case of the item getting lost in transit from the previous Editor. TARS is no more exempt from Murphy's Law than any other organisation.
Since the letter will no longer be topical by the time the next MM comes out, I may as well post it here, in the hope that some members may see it.
To the Editor:
I was interested to read Robin Anderson's note about a possible origin of the pigeons in PP. But there is another source which is more unexpected.
When Jill Goulder and I returned from our trip to Turkey in search of the Altounyan's summer lake and house (see MM 1994) we gave a presentation of our photos at the Southern Region Winter Gathering.
Brigit and Taqui came to see it. At the point when I showed a slide of the view from Sogukoluk towards the road coming over the pass from Aleppo, Brigit gave an excited squeak, saying "That's where we let off the pigeons!"
Brigit told me afterwards that she hadn't thought about this for years. The house was in the woods, separated from the village by a deep ravine. So the children would go to the vantage point in the village and watch for Ernest's car (not much traffic in those days) and let off a pigeon to the house as soon as they saw it.
Since AR was staying with them while writing PD, the idea for a future book may have started with their pigeons.