Posted by Peter H on February 27, 2002 at 12:26:53 from 213.122.79.250:
In Reply to: Re: Purported Attack on Nancy posted by John Lambert on February 27, 2002 at 05:03:44:
Hey, steady on everyone! For ‘100% female’ in my last posting, read ‘female’. ‘100% female’ was a thoughtless phrase to use – apologies, but that's email for you. ‘Plain wrong’ – I said that because I believe Prue Eckett’s theory to be wrong – no apologies for that – that is free speech, which I enjoy as well as Prue. I wondered whether Prue enjoyed AR’s books because if you are looking for ‘social attitudes’ all the time I don’t know how on earth you can thrill to what Nancy and Co are up to, but, OK, whatever turns you on.
In the interests of lightening things up a bit, I pass on a theory which goes some of the way to explaining why perhaps Nancy deliberately did not address the wretched pigeon to Titty. This theory was passed on to me yesterday by a female member of TARS. Nancy was familiar with layout at Strickland Junction station, because she had been sending pigeons regularly. She would have known that the porter would not have recognised the addressee, and would therefore have to call his or her name out loudly on the platform. Nancy, being worldly wise and considerate, would have realised that the red-faced porter would have had to shout ‘Miss Titty Walker’ along the platform. Even in the innocence of c. 1930 he would inevitably have been the butt of jokes and mirth among his workmates for weeks after. So she put Roger’s name down.
Well I reckon this theory is as good as any I’ve heard lately. Personally, though, I still think Nancy liked Roger enough to automatically address it to him. Nancy and Titty have never struck me as soul sisters. I doubt if AR worried about all this. Funny, isn’t it, how anyone trying to defend AR always ends up on the defensive themself?