Professor David Peimer
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Professor David Peimer - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- So going to dive into, so Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, as we all know, the writer of probably the most famous detective who never lived, Sherlock Holmes. I think the name Sherlock Holmes is known pretty much globally, and I really mean globally, from Asia to, from the East to the West, South, everywhere. It’s an extraordinary amount of impact that this guy’s stories had, and still have, in literature, film, TV, and in broader, general popular consciousness everywhere, and an extraordinary innovator, in my opinion, and, really, what he achieved, what he did, I think not only warrants at least a lecture, but warrants to the question why is Sherlock Holmes, the character he created, so enduring, so endearing, you know, nearly a century, over a century later? Pardon me. So I want to look at some of those questions and dive into, in particular, look a little bit at the writing, just his sheer ability to write, Conan Doyle’s ability to write. And also, I’m going to show some film clips, mainly from the Robert Downey Jr. version of the film. There’ve been a lot, obviously, but I found that to be amongst the most interesting, and I want to talk about why. And then briefly at the end, a very recent film by the wonderful contemporary British actor, Benedict Cumberbatch. But the main one will be Downey Jr.‘s. Of course, there are many to choose from, but I’ll talk about why that one. We’ll show a couple of clips there. Also, I’ve got an interview which was made by the BBC, gosh, nearly, almost about 100 years ago, an interview with Conan Doyle, where he speaks for a couple of minutes.
The sound is a bit loud, but we get to see him and hear him, at least for a couple of minutes, and I think it’s fascinating. The last thing I want to look at is a bit about his life, because I think it’s a very underestimated and unresearched life, but he achieved and accomplished an extraordinary amount, you know, and possibly part of the generation, the last generation perhaps, who saw Britain as empire, England as empire, as part of this great project, going into the world and, you know, to all the colonies and what they were doing, and what in their mind they were contributing and creating and making in the empire with an empire consciousness. But he has a humility as well, Doyle. And it’s this ability to, we cannot just pigeonhole him as one or two things. Because I’m going to talk about the Scottish Dreyfus trial, this Jewish person, who was a real person, and imprisoned for life. I’m going to explain the whole story when we get to it, and how Doyle helped him and others in terms of the very early days of the establishment, or the lobbying for the establishment of state of Israel, and in those, the phrases of the times, a homeland for Jewish people. So quite a lot we’re going to cover parts of the life, what he achieved, and obviously looking at some of the film clips from this extraordinary character of Sherlock Holmes. And I hope we see it with some irony and wit and just sheer entertainment and joy and fun in why we are so still today endeared by the character he created. So Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. For me, it’s about adventure, it’s about fun. There’s a bit of James Bond, there’s a bit of MacGyver, there’s a bit of action hero. This highly intelligent, rational thinker with wit and passion, and yet also able to physically, you know, embody a sense of action.
And not obviously as much as Tom Cruise, a Mission Impossible or James Bond or whatever, in those huge franchise films. But a different kind of physicality coming from the intelligence and the wit, the quick mind, the ability to outwit, outthink so fast. It’s in a sense the survivor outsider, and I think what’s fascinating for me about what Conan Doyle does is that Sherlock Holmes is an outsider survivor. He’s a consultant detective, which is so original for those times in a way. And I think there’s something about him being an outsider himself, Conan Doyle, I’m going to talk about his background in a minute, you know, which we can link, and I think where he possibly identifies with Jewish people in that. There is a little bit of a Charlie Chaplin element almost in some aspects of the irony and the wit of Sherlock Holmes, but also all these other archetypes I’ve mentioned. And of course, this is at the high point, endpoint almost, of the Victorian era in Britain, and the world for all the colonies in the empire. And the Victorian era obsessed with sort of crime adventure, crime fiction with a touch of the gothic element. And of course, there’s class always inside it. So all these elements come together in this remarkable character that this writer created. He was a writer and he was a highly qualified physician. Not only did he have a master of medicine, but a doctorate of medicine.
And he began, the first story of Sherlock Holmes was in 1887, “A Study in Scarlet.” Then Doyle wrote four novels on Sherlock Holmes and 56 short stories that we have. And I think he not only created this character, but he almost single-handedly, I think, took the whole genre of crime fiction and made it so hugely popular, but also having a huge impact on the study of criminology, the way police and investigations would actually be incorporated in societies. He’s born in Edinburgh, his father and mother of Irish Catholic descent, which is very interesting. So he is Scottish with Irish Catholic descent in the late 1800s. So we need to think of that context of what I’m calling this outsider temperament and character. His family lived in pretty squalid tenement flats in Edinburgh. Father died in 1893 of alcoholism and disease and other things. Very poor and very unsatisfied father who never achieved what he thought he could. So he comes from that very poor, very working class, you know, Scottish Irish Catholic background. He went to a school, which he, and I’m quoting him, he said, “was run on mediaeval principles.” And this is Conan Doyle writing about his school. Everybody was, the students were regarded as “mental dumbbells.” The school was harsh. Corporal punishment and daily rituals of humiliation were ever present. So it was that classic extreme of the Victorian English boy for schools. He later rejects the Catholic faith and takes up what he calls spiritualism, studies medicine at University of Edinburgh, and his short stories come first.
And the first story interestingly is set in South Africa, 'cause he went out to South Africa at the time also of the First Boer War, and later wrote about it. He went out as a physician. 1879, he publishes his first article in the British Medical Journal. So he’s a doctor, which is very important, together with a crime fiction writer. He was on a voyage to West Africa as the surgeon on the ship. He practised in, he set up a medical practise in Plymouth, which was not successful at all. And while he was waiting for patients, he used to write his stories. He was a supporter, and this is so interesting for today, and this is in the late 1800s, a supporter of compulsory vaccination, and wrote articles denouncing the views of anti-vaccinators. And it’s extraordinary. You know, history, you know, I think it was Mark Twain, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. In 1891, he goes to Vienna to study ophthalmology. And he’s done a lot, as I said, not only a master’s, but a doctorate in medicine in those days, ophthalmology in Vienna. But he gives it up because it’s too hard to study it in the German language. He tries to set up a practise as an ophthalmologist. It’s a bit of a failure. He’s torn between medicine and trying to write. He came up with the idea of the character of Sherlock Holmes when he’s 27 years old. First story was 1886, and he earned 25 pounds for the story, equivalent to nearly about 3,000 pounds in today’s money, and in exchange for giving up all the rights to the story. What’s really important, and he talks about this often, and he writes about this much later in his life, is that the character of Sherlock Holmes was modelled on one of his university professors.
So when we say that education doesn’t have much use, it’s currently being debated in England and elsewhere in the world, when we say professors or whoever don’t have much influence, Conan Doyle spoke a hell of a lot about his medical professor, a guy called Joseph Bell at Edinburgh University. And he wrote a letter to Bell, and I’m quoting here, he wrote, “It is to you, Professor Bell, that I owe Sherlock Holmes. From you, I understood the meaning of deduction, inference, observation, how to truly build a scientific detective character who would solve cases on its merits, not through the folly of a criminal, not through the look of nationality or religion of a criminal, but through scientific evidence.” And this is hugely important, this letter that he wrote to his ex-professor, because he applied the emerging scientific methods of his time to the character. And that, this is way before DNA analysis, all the other things. That is what I think is so important. And it’s Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes that, together with the zeitgeist of his times, is influencing so much of what we call police investigations today. It comes from the character, it comes from his work and that link between his own medical studies, from the influence of his professor, methods of logic, deduction, scientific evidence. You know, it’s all evidence-based. It’s not subjective-based, which may be about, you know, religion or, well, ethnicity or the look of a person, you know, shady look, so many of these things. And he helps, really helps take this idea much further. So it’s a real contribution to not only criminology, but to society at large in the West. His attitude, much later, he got a bit fed up with keeping on writing Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, because it became so popular so quickly. He wrote to his mother, and I’m quoting, “I think it’s time to slay Mr. Holmes, for good.
Mr. Holmes takes my mind off better things.” And his mother responded in a letter. “You can’t, you can’t, Arthur. You can’t. You mustn’t.” And there’s this wonderful, you know, dynamic between him and his mother where she’s saying, “No, no, no, he’s popular. You’re making money, you’re making your name, your reputation, everything fantastic. Keep going.” And he’s fed up. It’s wonderful, and the support from the mother was fantastic. Then what Doyle even tried, he tried to deflect his publisher’s demands for more and more Holmes stories. Let’s remember that this is all before TV, film, obviously internet, everything. So they published in magazines, which was the popular mode at the time, you know, really set up so strongly by Dickens and other writers from an earlier generation. And so in these magazines, it serialised stories, in a way. And the publishers kept wanting more and more because they were so popular and selling and people reading them and getting translated all over. So what he did, Doyle, was he raised the price to a huge amount for his stories, as a writer, thinking “The publisher will never pay me. It’ll stop. It’ll really turn them off commissioning more stories.” But the irony is that the opposite happened, and he was offered even more money. And as a result, became one of the wealthiest writers, certainly of the late 19th century into the 20th, one of the best paid authors of his times. So he keeps going on and on about this, but he’s writing so many other things as well.
But obviously it’s Mr. Sherlock that makes his name and fortune. He went to South Africa and he observed in the First Anglo-Boer War. What he saw was a terrible showing of the British troops, and how shocking the were at marksmanship and how bad they were with rifles. So he gets back to England and he sets up the Rifle Club, in 1901, and he writes a book about it. He wrote a book about the Anglo-Boer War justifying the British imperialist approach. But, you know, he’s writing many other things as well. And he’s travelling the world, this guy. 1901, he’s one of the three judges for the world’s first major bodybuilding competition. He was an amateur boxer himself. In 1900, when he went out to the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa, he was a physician working in Bloemfontein. Sorry, the Second Boer War. And that’s when he wrote the book, “The Great Boer War.” And that’s the reason why he was knighted, because the royalty at the time liked that he was pro-empire pro-the-British in the Anglo-Boer War, et cetera. That’s what got him his knighthood. He also stood for parliament twice. Wasn’t elected. He also wrote about the Belgian atrocities in the Congo, committed during, as we all know, during Leopold II’s reign. And he wrote a book called “The Crime of the Congo.” Vicious attack on, you know, 'cause millions died during Leopold’s reign and colonisation of the Congo. In 1909 is when his book came out. In the First World War, Doyle was one of 53 British authors, including H.G. Wells, Roger Kipling, Thomas Hardy, who signed what was called the “Author’s Declaration,” justifying British involvement, Britain’s involvement in the First World War.
He was also a fervent advocate of justice. Two major cases, and I’m going to go into them a little bit. Just want to give a sense of the extraordinary span of his life. And, you know, travelling to South Africa, he travelled to America, he travelled to Australia and New Zealand, he travelled in Europe, he travels to West Africa, and he’s working as a physician and he’s writing. He travels to Europe, obviously. You know, there’s this sense of living and going out there, this sense of, you know, the outsider, the survivor, the explorer, the, you know, see the world, and write once he’s created this character, with all the influence that I’ve mentioned. It’s a sense of looking out at the world, rather than, you know, for me, post-Brexit, this sort of inward looking. It’s not only in England, but you know, obviously elsewhere there’s a similar, the age-old conflict between isolationism and global vision, global consciousness, which I think part of what makes him, maybe, the outsider. Okay, if we can go on to the next slide, please. So this is a picture of Doyle on the right-hand side sitting at his desk. And the picture on the left is with his family when they were going on the ship to New York City and to America and then Canada. That’s obviously Doyle there. If we can go onto the next slide, please. This is arriving in New York City with his family. If we go on to the next slide, please. Now, this is a fascinating case. This guy Oscar Slater, his original name was Leschziner. Forgive my translation, my pronunciation. He was regarded as the Scottish Dreyfus Affair. Oscar, became Slater, was a German Jewish man who was an immigrant, obviously from Germany, and ended up living in Scotland.
He ran a gambling den. There’s conflicting evidence if he was a pimp as well, but anyway, he was living this life in Edinburgh, and he was convicted, and I’m going to use this word advisedly, of bludgeoning really bashing to bits, you know, to quote others who’ve written about this case, an 82-year-old woman in Glasgow in 1908. And he was sentenced first to death and that was commuted to life imprisonment. And in 1908, and this all happened then, but this interested Doyle because of the inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case and a general sense that he was not guilty. And Doyle paid the costs for this Jewish gentleman’s successful 1928 appeal. That’s 19 years later. Doyle paid the costs for his appeal, took it back. Doyle researched it like Sherlock Holmes, literally did it like Sherlock, deduction, logic, scientific evidence, all the rest of it, and managed to prove on appeal he was not guilty of any murder or anything. He’d been in prison for nearly 20 years for nothing. Doyle wrote about it, that it was a classic case of anti-Semitism, and he became, it’s a huge case in Scottish legal history, became known as the Dreyfus of Scotland. And obviously at the time there were two things. There was German nationalism beginning, the First World War happens, and then afterwards. So Oscar Slater becomes subject to German, to nationalism and the British attitude to it, and of course, more importantly and deeper, that he’s Jewish. And this was part of the late Victorian, what Doyle called Victorian pseudoscience of criminological anthropology, which harnessed dodgy eugenics to prove criminals are born, and not made.
You know, to quote from the times, and I’m adapting here from some of Doyle’s writing, “you only had to look at a man’s shifty eyes, weak mouth, and at a time of rising anti-Semitism, his big nose, for the police to assume that he was a bad man.” Well, understanding what’s going on, and understanding how a sense of complete false ethnicity, religion, and all that, is used to judge somebody, rather than any scientific evidence. And at the time, newspapers said that he was the sort of man, “Slater was the sort of man who would break an old lady’s home and bash her to death by bludgeoning her.” And I’m quoting from newspapers of the time. So Doyle brings in the new system of forensic and scientific evidence, scientific approach, typified by Sherlock Holmes. Look at the clues, work logically, meticulously, evidence-based science, et cetera. And much later, Doyle argues in his book that Slater was set up to cover the real murderer, who was rumoured to be a member of the very wealthy, of the Gilchrist’s own family, that the police covered it up, cover up job. This guy’s two sisters remained in Germany. In 1942, of course they were arrested by the Nazis and the one was sent to Treblinka, and the other one to Theresienstadt, and his two sisters were murdered by the Germans. It’s a fascinating case to study by going into more detail, and I just wanted to link it because he becomes almost his own Sherlock Holmes in helping, this guy was 19 years in prison, but at least he gets released, and so on. Okay, Doyle became interested in mysticism, became a spiritualist and a spirit possession, and he got rid of his Irish Catholic heritage. He went to Australia, New Zealand, founded missionary work for spiritualism. He became friendly with Harry Houdini.
We all know, Jewish. And there’s lots of letters between the two. And Houdini said, “ No, all my exploits are based on illusion. They are tricks.” Doyle was convinced Houdini had supernatural powers. And he wrote a wonderful story about it called the “Edge of the Unknown.” Houdini assured him, “No, it’s all pure illusion.” And it’s this wonderful, and they met each other, you know, at dinners and things. And Doyle refused to believe it was illusion and tricks. He wrote a book in 1926, “The History of Spiritualism.” And in 1926, he gave 500 pounds of the full construction costs of 600 to a building in Camden in London for the Spiritualist Temple in Camden in London. Doyle sets up the Crime Club in 1903, where crime was the discussion and detection and new approaches to criminology, everything I’ve mentioned before. The club still meets to this day in London and meets four times a year. The age of 71, he had a heart attack and he dies. And his last words were to his wife holding her hand: “It’s true.” And he said to her, “You are wonderful.” And he insisted at the time of his death that he was not a Christian, he was a spiritualist. Okay, if we can go to the next slide, please. So this is in 1906. Doyle spoke at the inaugural meeting of the Central London branch of the Jewish Territorial Organisation. And this is, I’ve quoted this here from the newspaper at the time, who quoted a speech that Doyle gave at this meeting of the London branch of the Jewish Territorial Organisation.
“Doyle said that If he were a Jew, he could not rest unless he helped in some slight way to ameliorate the sad lot of his persecuted brethren. He felt that if the Jews were to be true to their splendid traditions, they, who had provided leaders in every sphere of activity, would provide men who would find a solution to this burning question,” which was about a land, a homeland, a territory. It’s 1906, remember. “Men who would make it impossible that the Jews should undergo butchery, torture, and shame, men who would see that their brethren were not driven from one land, refused admission to another.” Let you remember the Aliens Act in England, early 1900s. “And hunted about from frontier to frontier.” It’s an extraordinarily eloquent way of writing a speech that he gave at this meeting. And I think it’s really important, significant historically, it shows what he, how he understood completely what was going on with Jewish people trying to get into England, or wherever in the world, and travelling, and the history, the ancient history of Jewish people, certainly in the West. Okay, if you go to the next slide, please. This is an interesting book, which was written by a guy, it’s by Nicholas Meyer, “The Adventures of the Peculiar Protocols.” And what Meyer does is that he applies Sherlock Holmes’s approach, meticulous, logical scientific, to find out, to solve the question who wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It’s a fascinating quick read if you want fun, but it shows the interest of applying Sherlock to one of the most important questions in Western, and so obviously Jewish, history, in Western history. We go on to the next slide, please. This is on the left is a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Edinburgh, and on the right is Sidney Paget, who was his main illustrator in these magazines, and that was the first image created, 'cause you know, there were a bit like comics today, but there were magazine images illustrated obviously in these times.
And as I said, post-Dickens generation where they would, you know, draw. Illustrators were really important. And the first image of Sherlock Holmes drawn by Sidney Paget. We can go onto the next one, please. And again, Sidney Paget, you know, a more detailed drawing which has become the classic archetype of all the images we have in our imagination globally, and in all the films and TV works. We can go on to the next slide, please. This is from the very, very early edition of the book of the first one of Sherlock Holmes. We on to the next one, please. Adventure stories. We’ve got to remember, it’s an adventure story par excellence, “A Study in Scarlet.” This was the first book he wrote. Look how beautifully that cover is, and compared to the bland covers of books today. You know, there’s the stories down there, two original by Conan Doyle. Look at the care of the illustrator, the engraver. Love these old things, the engraving by, and you know, it just makes it so much more alive and mobilises our imagination, for me, to read it, I think. Go on to the next one, please. You know, of course the great novel of probably the best known, most well-known story of “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Of course, we can hold this for a moment. And this is from one of the very, very early editions of the book, you know, and again, the care with the engraving. Okay, I’m going to talk a little bit about this story as the main one that we’re going to look at, and then show some clips. He wrote this after returning from South Africa, as I mentioned, the Second Boer War where he’d worked as a doctor in Bloemfontein. And he brought him back, and this was the story that he wrote after being in South Africa. And it was called the most, let me get the exact phrase here, and it called the most, “a serious and most extraordinary event.” “A most serious and extraordinary problem to be solved.” That’s Conan Doyle’s writing. I love that phrase.
“A most serious and extraordinary problem to be solved.” There’s always an ironic twist of wit inside the character of Holmes, inside the writing, I think, of Doyle. I want to just read a couple of things. You all know the story, I’m sure. This came when his publishers were pushing, you know, for another one. And he went to Devon with some friends on a golfing holiday, and they were roaming Dartmoor, where of course, you know, we have all the image, the idea of the gothic comes and many other things, and he comes up with our phantom creatures, red eyes, Satan’s, you know, inside creatures. And he wrote to his friend, “My dear Robinson, when we went to Dartmoor, it was your account of a country legend which suggested the idea of this little tale to my mind. For this and for the help which you gave me, thanks.” Story of “The Hounds of the Baskervilles” comes. So this is, we find him going on this trip, and the name Baskerville probably comes from, believe it or not, the truth is the coachman who drove them around Dartmoor, the name was Harry Baskerville. And there was another Baskerville that he bumped into in Dartmoor related to that Baskerville. Yeah, he took the name. So the protagonist, you know, is obviously the character that he’s created. Now, I want to just read a little bit from the story, 'cause I’m sure everybody knows it. I don’t want to go into the whole story, but just to get a sense of Doyle’s brilliance as a writer. “The avenue opened.” This is, so Henry Baskerville arrives back at his house after being overseas and comes back to claim this is his rightful property, but of course, there’s the legend, the story of, the terrible story of the hound that, you know, is going to kill the Baskervilles.
So the writing goes: “As they arrive at the big house in Devon, the avenue opened and the house lay before us. In the fading light, I could see a heavy block of a building. The front was draped in ivy with a patch clipped here and there, which broke through the dark veil. From the central block of the house rose twin towers, ancient, pierced with many loopholes. A dull light shone through heavy windows, and from above the high chimneys rose a single black column of smoke. Indoors, the dining room was a place of shadow and gloom. It was a long chamber. Black beams shot across our heads with a smoke-darkened ceiling beyond them, with rows of flaring torches to light it up. Two black clothed gentlemen sat in the little circle of light thrown by a shaded lamp. One’s voice became hushed, and one’s spirit subdued. I became hushed. I became subdued in my spirit.” It’s such a way of writing which creates the feeling, the mood, the atmosphere of this sort of gothic terror and fear in Devon, Dartmoor. You can imagine. There’s no electricity. It’s just candlelight and all that. And within that you have all these mystery stories, crime, fiction, you know, you can create a whole world. I think he does it beautifully with the writing. And for a second, his, you know, ability as a writer, the menace, the foreboding, but he never gets over-carried-away with menace, curses, blood-curdling screams. That’s in the stories, but it’s the characters that stand out, the characters of Sherlock Holmes. And I think this links with what became known as inner life of character, where you go into the three-dimensional psychology of the characters. They’re not just two-dimensional characters, they’re three-dimensional. You imbue them with all sorts of, you know, nuance and what we would call inner psychological life of character today. And he’s part of the generation of British and global American, global writers to start all of this in literature, or bring it back at least, you know. Okay, there are many other phrases, you know, about the hound itself and many other things. Sherlock Holmes and the way he talks to Watson, you know, we can go on. What I would like to do is dive into showing you a couple of clips. First of all from the Robert Downey Jr. version of the film Made by Guy Ritchie. We’re going to show a couple of clips, okay? If we can show the first one please, Emily. Sorry, this is an interview with Doyle first by the BBC. My apologies. Thanks, Emily.
- Come on, Roy. Good old boy, yeah. Let’s see now. I’ve got to speak one or two words, and just to try my voice, I understand. Well, the two things that people always want to ask me, well, one of them is how I ever came to write the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the other is about how I came to have psychic experiences and to take so much interest in that question. Well, first of all about the Sherlock Holmes stories, it came about in this way. I was quite a young doctor at the time that had of course a scientific training, and I used to occasionally to read detective stories. But what annoyed me, how in the old-fashioned detective story, the detective always seemed to get at his results, either by some sort of lucky chance or a fluke, or else it was quite unexplained how he got there. He got there, but he never gave an explanation how. Well, that didn’t seem to me quite playing the game. It seemed to me that he is bound to give his reasons why he came to his conclusions. Well, once I began to think about this, I began to think of turning scientific methods, as it were, onto the work of detection. And I used, as a student, to have an old professor, his name was Bell, who was extraordinarily quick at deductive work. He would look at the patient, he would hardly allow the patient to open his mouth, but he would make his diagnosis of the disease, and also very often of the patient’s nationality and occupation and other points entirely by his power of observation. So naturally I thought to myself, well, if a scientific man like Bell was to come into the detective business, he wouldn’t do these things by chance. He’d get the thing by building it up scientifically.
So having once conceived that line of thought, you can well imagine that I had, as it were, a new idea of a detective, and one which it interested me to work out. I thought of 100 little dodges, as you may say, 100 little touches by which he could build up his conclusions. And then I began to write stories on those lines. At first, I think they attracted very little attention, but after time when I began the short adventures, one after the other coming out, month after month in the Strand Magazine, people began to recognise that it was different to the old detective, that there was something there which was new. They began to buy the magazine, and it prospered. And, so I may say, did I. We both came along together, and from that time, Sherlock Holmes fairly took root. I’ve written a good deal more about him than I ever intended to do, but my hand has been rather forced by kind friends who continually wanted to know more. And so it is that this monstrous growth has come out out of what is really a comparatively small seed. But the curious thing is how many people around the world who are perfectly convinced that he is a living human being. I get letters addressed to him, I get letters asking for his autograph, get letters addressed to his rather stupid friend, Watson. I even had ladies writing to say that they were very glad to act as his housekeeper. One of them, when she heard that he had turned to the occupation of keeping bees, wrote, saying that she was an expert at segregating the queen, whatever that may mean, and that she was evidently predestined to be the housekeeper of Sherlock Holmes. I don’t know if there’s anything more I can say with advantage about him, but on the other point, which just to me of course.
Thank you. I say he’s got almost a Bloemfontein accent. That’s extraordinary. That sounds so South African, that accent. What I love is, there’s a humility. There’s a constant irony and wit, a kind of detached humanity that is evident in him, of kindness I get, you know, in this BBC interview. This is over 100 years. My apologies for that crackling sound, but it is 100-year-old recording which we managed to find. Okay, thank you. If we can go on to the next slide, please. This is another film clip. It’s a short clip from one of the films with Robert Downey Jr.
[Sherlock] Head cocked to the left. Partial deafness in ear, first point of attack. Two, throat. Paralyse vocal cords, stop scream. Three, got to be heavy drinker, floating rib, liver. Four, finally dragging left leg, fist to patella. Summary prognosis, conscious in 90 seconds, Marshall efficacy, quarter of an hour at best. Full faculty recovery, unlikely.
Thanks. It is almost like, you know, planning krav maga. I like that. Where he’s logically working step-by-step, six chess moves ahead of how to fight and beat a guy who’s much bigger and appears much stronger. It’s a almost a bit of James Bond later, you know, but there’s always a bit of irony, in which… But he’s also a physical action hero, which is often underestimated. It’s not just this pure intellect. You know, to try and find what is so endearing about this archetype. It’s Odysseus from Homer in ancient times. A bit of Achilles in there. You know, this cunning, trickery, intelligence, rational thinking, logic, together with some physical. Okay, we can go on to the next slide, please. From another film.
[Sherlock] This mustn’t register on an emotional level. First, distract target. Then block his blind jab. Counter with cross to left cheek. Discombobulate. Dazed, he’ll attempt a wild haymaker. Employ elbow block and body shot. Block feral left. Weaken that jaw. Now fracture. Break cracked ribs. Traumatise solar plexus. Dislocate jaw entirely. Heel kick to diaphragm. In summary, ears ringing, jaw fractured, three ribs cracked, four broken, diaphragm haemorrhaging. Physical recovery, six weeks. Full psychological recovery, six months. Capacity to spit at back of head, neutralised.
Okay, we can hold it there, please. So this is one of the classic scenes that he wrote, and it’s been done many times in various films, where all logically worked out before, thought through, and then done. Again, bit of James Bond, a bit of MacGyver, you know, all the different archetype action heroes that we have. And yet, it’s within such an intellectual mind that’s able to work like a computer almost, or you know, machine-like calculations in order to win the fight. Okay, if we can go onto the next clip, please. It’s from “A Game of Shadows.”
About that fortune of yours. I believe it’s just been substantially reduced.
King to rook two.
I attended several of your lectures.
Equations of motion, which you will find in my book, the energy that is required to release this explosion.
Hmm. It was in-
Actually-
Oslo when I first caught a glimpse of your little notebook, red leather-bound from Smythson of Bond Street. Rook to king’s rook three. Check.
Bishop to rook three.
Its importance was not fully patterning to me until I observed your penchant for feeding pigeons that it occurred. That with an empire so enormous, even you must keep a record of it somewhere, Bishop takes bishop.
Rook to Bishop four.
I then only required the notebook itself. You didn’t make it easy.
Just the bags.
I would need to endure a considerable amount of pain. Mycroft, care of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
But the notebook would undoubtedly be encoded, so how then to break the code? Rook takes rook.
Pawn takes work.
Bishop to bishop seven.
Queen takes knight pawn.
Does the “Art of Domestic Horticulture” mean anything to you? How could a man as meticulous as you own such a book, yet completely neglect the flowers in his own window box? Irony abounds. Nevermind, it’s safe, in London, but my colleagues are making good use of it. The most formidable criminal mind in Europe has just had all his money stolen by perhaps the most inept inspector in the history of Scotland Yard.
Any chance of cup of tea?
Box 0403.
Tick.
Box 0801.
How much more is there?
That’s the end of page two. Page three.
He’ll be making an anonymous donation to the Widows and Orphans of War Fund. Bishop to bishop eight. Discover check. And incidentally, mate. Hold it there. So-
About that.
Again, what we see, for me, is this beautifully logical mind, but what’s fascinating is how Conan Doyle keeps it within the dramatic tension of a narrative, of a story coming all the time. And it’s the character that is so multifaceted. You know, it’s not pure intellect. He’s physical. He’s relishing and loving, outwitting and outthinking, outplaying in every sense of that word, outplaying any criminal or any opposition. And it’s that’s what gives him, for me, the charm. We talk about in theatre, you know, every actor or character needs to have some charm about him or her. You know, they can be the biggest villain, but have something that’s charming. And what he has is not only the mind, which is so brilliant and scientific and logical, but also that he relishes the use of the mind, and that is what I think is one of the great contributions that he brings into the detective, the crime genre. It’s that relishing, that almost ravishing feeling. You know, his passion is not money, fame, all of that. His passion is the love of the mind and how the mind can solve problems, but together with that passion. And I think that’s what Downey Jr. brings into this performance. Okay, if we can go on to the next clip, please.
Don’t worry, dear. Suicide is not in his repertoire. He’s far too fond of himself for that. Holmes.
Oh, good afternoon. I was trying to deduce the manner in which Blackwood survived his execution, clearing your good name, as it were. but it had a surprisingly a soporific effect on me, and I was carried off in the arms of Morpheus, like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Good afternoon, dear.
Get on with it, Holmes.
Cleverly concealed in the hangman’s knot was a hook. Dear, I think my legs have fallen asleep. I should probably come down.
John, shouldn’t we help him down?
No, no, no. I hate to cut him off midstream. Carry on.
Well, the executioner attached it to harness, thus allowing the weight to be distributed around the waist, and the neck to remain intact. Oh my lord. I can’t feel my cheeks. Might, might we continue this at ground level?
How did you manage it, Holmes?
I managed it with braces, belts and a coat hook. Oh please, Watson, my tongue is going. I’ll be of no use to you.
It’s obviously the Houdini influence.
Worst things could happen.
John.
Yeah, none of this explains Blackwood’s lack of pulse.
Right. Now, the medical mystery. We must restore your reputation, Watson. There is a toxin refined from the nectar of the rhododendron ponticum. It’s quite infamous in the region of Turkey bordering the Black Sea for its ability to induce an apparently mortal paralysis. Enough to mislead a medical mind even as tenacious and well-trained as your own. It’s known locally as-
What’s wrong with Gladstone?
Mad honey disease. Well, he’s, um, demonstrating the very effect I’ve just described. He doesn’t mind.
Mary, don’t worry. He’s seen far worse. Okay. So what I really enjoyed here we can see it, but in a quieter, gentler way, you know, his love of working it out step-by-step. What I said earlier, relishing with almost a ravishing feeling of passion, the use of the mind to solve things. And that’s what keeps him excited in life. That’s his mission, if you like, purpose. Okay, if we can go on to the next clip, please.
Take Watson.
I intend to.
See his walking stick? A rare African snake wood hiding a blade of high tensile steel. A few were awarded to veterans of the Afghan war, so I can assume he’s a decorated soldier. Strong, brave, born to be man of action, and neat, like, all military men. Now, I check his pockets. Ah, a stump from a boxing match. Now, I can infer that he’s a bit of a gambler. I’d keep an eye on that dowry if I where you.
Those days are behind me.
Right behind you. It’s cost us the rent more than once.
Well, with all due respect, Mr. Holmes, you know John very well. What about a complete stranger? What can you tell about me?
You?
I don’t think that’s-
I don’t know that’s-
Not at dinner.
Perhaps another time.
I insist.
You insist?
You remember what we discussed?
The lady insists. You’re a governess.
Well done.
Yes, well done. Shall we? Waiter.
Your student, it’s a boy of eight.
Charlie’s seven, actually.
Ah, then he’s tall for his age. He flicked ink at you today.
Is there ink on my face?
There’s nothing wrong with your face.
There are two drops on your ear, in fact. India blue’s nearly impossible to wash off. Anyway, A very impetuous act by the boy, but you’re too experienced to react rashly, which is why the lady for whom you work lent you that necklace. Oriental pearls, diamonds, a flawless ruby. Hardly the gems of a governess. However, the jewels you are not wearing tell us rather more.
Holmes.
You were engaged. The ring is gone, but the lighter skin where it once sat suggests that you spend some time abroad awaiting him proudly. That is, until you were informed of its true and rather modest worth, and then you broke off the engagement and returned to England for better prospects. A doctor perhaps?
If you could hold it there, please Emily. Thank you. What I love there is, you know, we all, I guess it speaks to an archetypal fantasy of human nature to be so observant to, from the small little things we pick up, you know, so many deeper meanings about other human beings, about people we know, people we don’t know, if we would only take a moment to observe such detail, and be so intrigued, not just objectively fascinated, but intrigued to figure it out like a chess game, a jigsaw puzzle, whatever. And we look at a child’s eyes and they’re trying to figure out something new for the first time, you get the sense of putting it together, this intelligence working in that particular way, which I think what Arthur Conan Doyle did. He put together a very scientific medical approach, which he learned at university with a crime detective character and creates a genre almost single-handedly. Okay, we can go to the next clip, please. Show one more. This is Benedict Cumberbatch, the last couple shows.
It wasn’t an animal, was it, Henry?
Sorry.
Not a monster. A man. You couldn’t cope. You were just a child, so you rationalised it into something very different. Then you started to remember, so you had to be stopped, driven out of your mind so that no one would believe a word that you said.
Sherlock!
It’s okay. It’s okay mate.
But we saw it. The hound, last night. We, we did, we saw-
There was a dog, Henry, leaving footprints, scaring witnesses, but it was nothing more than an ordinary dog. We both saw it, saw it as our drugged minds wanted us to see it. Fear and stimulus, that’s how it works. But there never was any monster.
Sherlock?
Okay, if we could hold it there, please. Okay, so I wanted to show this as the last, most recent, you know, wonderful contemporary actor, Benedict Cumberbatch doing Sherlock as well. You know, he brings a slightly more youthful and slightly more sort of mind or intellectual quality to the character. But let’s never forget this is set in Victorian, late 19th, early 20th century. The love of gothic, the love of the horror, and let’s never forget how violent these stories are, and how much the Victorians loved it. Go back to Dickens, we can go back to Dracula. You know, there’s a real… We cannot forget that for a second. I think it’s become very anaesthetised, often, in contemporary ways of reading it or talking about these stories or kind of nostalgically quaint, almost, from Victorian times. But they weren’t. They were much more… They had this grotesque, horrific quality, and you know, there was a Victorian love of this sort of dark underbelly of the society, as well. Otherwise, these guys would never have been so popular in their writing and their publishing and all of that. So back to “Elementary, my dear Watson,” Elementary, my dear David. I think all of these things create such a fascinating character. The physicality, the Victorian era of the times, empire at the background, this putting together of the scientific medical approach he studied with a crime detective character who’s a bit of an action hero, but is driven by this passion for the mind and the life of the mind, the life of ideas, putting them together, and which is so often ignored and seen, you know, either as the sort of fusspot sort of, you know, abstract professor character, the sort of nutty professor, you know, all of that. Or is seen as pure, cold, logical mind. You know, he creates much more of a human character. I think it’s ultimately the character in the stories that have made it last so powerfully, and is this ability to put these qualities together that I mentioned.
And of course to never forget, there’s always a hint, as we get when we listen to him talking as well in the BBC interview, of ironic wit. It’s always there. And let’s face it, and one of the endearing qualities for me for today is to remind everybody, hang on before we judge in society, you know, through fake news or conspiracy theories, or lies or vaccinations, or whatever it is, there’s also a very, you know, a scientific evidence-based approach, which is so obviously relevant for our times today and probably has been for the last hundred years, if not, you know, hundreds of years. So it’s just much more prevalent through all the mass media that we have. So the idea of bringing this character and how he wrote, Conan Doyle, together with his is his quite extraordinarily rich life. I think all of that feeds into creating this kind of character and stories, which has never been out of print. And it’s not only how many he’s sold, but I think there’s a sense of Doyle himself, you know, loving what he has done, bringing the one the, you know, ultimately, this forensic approach, this logical approach, which has nothing to do with anything else, as evidenced by the case of Slater, of the Jewish guy regarded the Scottish Dreyfus, and into not only crime detection and criminology, but into a worldview of seeing humanity in the end. Okay, so thank you very much, and I’ll hold it there and we can go into questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Irv, “I prefer the Rathbone version to the Downey.” Yes, I was going to show the Rathbone, but thought somehow the Downey version feels a little bit more contemporary in a way, but personal choice. There’s Rathbone, there’s Downey, there’s others, you know, and fully understand you what you were saying, Irv.
Linda and Peter, they believe that the first Sherlock you saw remains the most memorable, Jeremy Brett. Yes. Sherlock. Perfect. A fantastic Jeremy Brett, and Rathbone. Absolutely. Irv,
“He was also a science fiction writer before that term even existed, in the Professor Challenger series.” Exactly. You know, which is another whole thing with Professor Challenger, yeah, those series. Faye, “World War I, not II.” Thank you. Yes.
Dennis, “Joseph Bell’s name is immortalised to this day as he described Bell’s Palsy, of course, a common transient facial paralysis.” Thank you for reminding me, Dennis. That’s a brilliant connection. That’s the Sherlock mind making the connection. Thanks.
Q: Nancy, “Why did he wait 19 years?”
A: I think he only really got to know about it much more, and also he needed to make his name first as a writer, and became huge and then apply his reputation and name after he’d written the Sherlock stories, so he’d be taken much more seriously to the case, or he just didn’t know much about it or hadn’t read much about it 'til much later. I don’t know. Good question. Great question.
Q: Rhoda, “How could Doyle, who was so dedicated to scientific investigation and nevertheless not believe Harry Houdini’s insistence that his stunts were all illusion? I can understand the influence and spiritualism, but his refusal to believe Houdini belies his scientific training.”
A: Yes, and there are many letters from friends and contemporaries of his, which I looked at, where they say that exactly, that contradiction. And he, himself, acknowledges the irony of it. Later on in that same BBC interview, he acknowledges the irony of it and the spiritualism, and you know, the seeming contradictions. But like all of us, you know, a person of many contradictions, all too human.
Irv, “Meyer also wrote the 7% solution as a book screenplay.” Yeah, thank you for reminding me, Irv.
Q: Bobby, “Who’s your favourite Sherlock on screen? My vote goes to Rathbone.”
A: Yeah, I go to Downey Jr. And I know that’s maybe a bit controversial, but that’s fine, you know, but because I think he brings in more irony and wit, and I think he brings in a bit of a physicality. It’s also the director and the filmmaker. And I think that makes it a bit more of an overall archetype, for me, of these qualities of a bit of a Odysseus from Homer, a bit of a James Bond, a bit of, you know, a whole lot of things in one archetype. Maybe it’s, you know, closer to me, my generation, I don’t know yours, but somehow… I don’t know. That’s my reason.
Q: Nancy, “Was he influenced by Poe?”
A: Yes. In that BBC interview he goes on to talk about Edgar Allen Poe and the brilliance of the stories. Absolutely. Irv. I think actually to go back to your question, it’s a great question. I think it’s more of a physicality, and I think growing up in South Africa, maybe it’s something more of a physicality that I identify with, in the Downey version.
Q: Irv, “Is 'The Hound of the Baskervilles’ his only reference to in the canon?”
A: The fan club of Toronto,“ yeah, "is the Bootmakers Club.” Great, thank you.
David, “At the entrance to the town of Crowborough in East Sussex is a large road which signed, which states ‘Welcome to Crowborough.’” Oh, this is the home of him. Yep.
“My grandfather, the principle of a large Jewish education establishment in London was a great admirer of Conan Doyle. Fantastic.
Q: "Do you mean the 20th century there?”
A: Probably, yeah, David.
Q: Elliot, “What do you make of the relationship between Holmes and Watson?”
A: Ah, I love it, because it’s classic. In film jargon, it’s called the buddy story, where you know, you have the main detective, the main cop, the main criminal, with the sidekick. So you always have the main character and the sidekick, and that’s known as the buddy-buddy story in Hollywood jargon, or film jargon and TV, but it goes back to novels as well. And I love it, that Holmes has the sidekick who is a doctor and Watson, and you know, I’ve got they’re lots of… It’s so witty, the interplay, quick and sharp between the two of them, you know, and there’s a clear platonic, almost sort of love between them, while Holmes is constantly playing at putting him down, but not really.
Paula, “The opening of "The Hound of the Baskervilles” made me think of the first paragraphs.“ Daphne du Maurier.
Yep, "Rebecca.” I don’t know if she was influenced by Conan Doyle. Great question. Thanks, Paula. Going to find out.
Ron, “When I was a boy, I loved reading the tales by two Scots, Robert Louis Stevenson and later Doyle. They both travelled widely.” Yes. “And described imaginative male adventures.” Very much, adventure story. Absolutely.
Q: “Was Stevenson an influence on Doyle?”
A: I don’t know. That’s a great question to look at.
“Victorian gothic tales were popular.” Absolutely. You know, and we can go way back to Mary Shelley and you know, her story “Frankenstein,” and then “Dracula.” You know, all the other stories. There’s so many around that time. It’s fascinating that gothic and horror and it was the grotesque type of underbelly stories that were so popular.
Mayra, “He has a pronounced South African accent.” Yes, I know. It sounds like he could come from Cape Town or Bloemfontein or Joberg, or you know, wherever, ever in South Africa. I know. It’s another whole area of research that would be fascinating to do. ‘Cause he must’ve had a Scottish accent, you know, but living in, you know, very gentleman in the upper class England at the time.
Q: Pamela, “Who was it who wrote the protocols?”
A: Nicholas Meyer. And it’s a fictitious book on applying, as if Sherlock, applying that approach to solve the question of who really wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Q: Glenda, “Who’s your favourite actor?”
A: I think I’ve mentioned, why Downey Jr.
Stewart, “I grew up on the Basil Rathbone.” Yeah. Brilliant. Holmes and Roger Bruce as Watson. Yes. I don’t know if Rathbone ever met Doyle. That’s a great question. We need to find out.
Q: Ron, “What about Dr. Watson? Affable but dim.”
A: That’s a great phrase, Ron. “Affable but dim English physician.” In that interview with Doyle by the BBC, the one I showed, he goes on to talk about Watson as a bit of a stupid character in his mind, as the writer. But I don’t think he’s just stupid. I think your phrase is wonderful, “affable but dim English physician.”
Q: “Was Doyle making a commentary on the medical man of his age?”
A: Quite possibly. Great thought. I think that’s really interesting, your insight there, Ron.
Thanks. Clive, “For Ron, a dimwitted Watson was a Hollywood creation.” I love Lockdown. How we can debate and discuss these things. Here we are discussing Sherlock, this fictitious character. It was Watson who was the author of the Sherlock Holmes Stories. Yes, and contrary… It was often seen through the diaries or the story of Watson telling the story, which is a great literary device, where you have the sidekick who tells the story, so the main protagonist is almost freed up to, you know, do many more things as a character in the story. And the sidekick becomes more two-dimensional to allow the main protagonist to be more three, the inner life of psychological character.
Mavis, thanks for your kind comments. The BBC interview. Yeah, it goes on and on. It’s quite long, but it’s a wonderful interview. Thanks for your kind comments today, Mavis. These movies were made in the 2000s, and the one by the fantastic British director, Guy Ritchie, who was married to Madonna for a while, but he’s a fantastic, also a fantastic film director. He does crime and sort of gangs in London stories. He’s done them as well.
David. “Snatch,” he did. “Forgive me, that photograph on your wall in the background.” That’s an image of the Charles Bridge in Prague. I lived there for five, nearly six years.
Q: Lorna, “Is Watson modelled on any real person?”
A: I think it might be, you know, the average… 'cause he, Conan Doyle, often savages, you know, the incompetence and the dullness of the police and the inspectors. They’re always five steps behind. And I think, you know, the fact that Watson is a doctor, also five steps, 'cause they’re not applying the same scientific approach, you know, that Sherlock is.
Vivian, “Basil Rathbone is by far the best.”
Q: And who is, oh, Moriarty?
A: That’s a great question. I mean, you know, there’s lots of speculation, but no… I’m going to sound like I’m trying to be Sherlock Holmes here. No hard evidence who Moriarty was specifically based on.
Ron, “Jeremy Brett gets my vote. The best Holmes.” Yep.
Okay, “For me they’re all superb. Brett, Rathbone close second. I find the 21st century version you showed too full of tricked-out gimmickry, which combined with over-amped sound leaves me cold. The subtlety and the grace of the original written stories.” That’s a great question. There’s a great point, Ron. And I’ll take it fully, and we’ll agree to disagree.
Okay, Irving. There’s a great point, Ron. Thank you.
“It’s interesting to compare Conan Doyle’s life to Sir William Osler.” Ah, yeah, I don’t know about him. “Osler’s dates are very similar. He was born in rural Ontario, graduated medicine from McGill, practised in Britain, eventually at John Hopkins. He was a clinical physician.” Oh, I don’t know about this. Fascinating.
“Considered a father of clinical medicine.” Thanks for that, Irving. Appreciate it. Love these connections that we make on Lockdown all the time. Henry, “Thank you.”
Q: Greta, “Was he the person who beloved the little girls who claimed to have seen fairies?”
A: Not sure about that, Greta. Ah, okay. Thank you.
Oh, from Sheldon, “Thank you very much.”
And then Clive, “The interview wasn’t from the BBC. It was too early. It was a William Fox presentation.” Ah, because when I found it said BBC. I think it was William Fox showing it through the BBC maybe? Or showing it later on the BBC that it was gotten.
Okay, thanks for that Clive. Really appreciate it. It’s very helpful. Sheila, thank you, kind comments.
“Never really liked detective novels, but made me think about reading them.” You’ve got to read them with irony and wit and humour. You know, whether it’s Hercule Poirot or whoever. And Ruth Rendell, fantastic contemporary writer. And support… Yeah. Yeah, I also didn’t know that he’d spent time in South Africa, or that he’d even wrote a book about it and Great Boer War and the incompetence of the British soldiers at marksmanship.
Q: “What about Prof Moriarty?”
A: I don’t know, and what we spoke about earlier. That’s great, because this would be fascinating to find out.
Q: Bobby, “Still puzzled that he could justify spiritualism when it’s characterised by a total lack of scientific evidence. How could his meticulous mind reconcile that?”
A: Well, it’s, you know, people have faith and belief, and yet can be engaged in a very logical, rational profession or way of being in the world. You know, we all, I guess part of human nature, have these contradictions, but I love that question. Let’s just go in here.
Q: Elaine, “Why would Doyle make Sherlock Holmes turn inward? Addiction? Was it part of the culture? Snuff?”
A: Yeah, snuff certainly was. And opium, you know, and medical colleagues on Lockdown and elsewhere would know more about this than me. You know, I’m more of, you know, an amateur at this, but yes, of various addictions. Certainly opium, certainly snuff, et cetera.
Myrna, “Porter has his sidekick.” Exactly. There’s always the sidekick, you know, “Lethal Weapon.” You know, even if you think in a way, James Bond, you know, there’s Q who is something of a bit of a sidekick, not completely, but something of a bit of a sidekick to James Bond. The idea of it is played with. You know, and then later there’s the Felix, the American CIA character.
“Comment on talent versus science of deduction of Sherlock and Doyle.” Yeah, I think we’ve spoken about that.
Ron, “The author with a fascination with girls,” oh, “was Louis Carroll.” Yes. And mathematics. You know, let’s remember Lewis Carroll.
Lorna, “The girls are Cottingley Fairies. Doyle taken in by these fake photos.” Okay. All interesting.
Cliff, “Conan Doyle was fascinated with Napoleon.” Yes. He wrote a play, which was done in New York. He wrote a play about Waterloo and fascinated with Napoleon. Exactly.
“And many found to engage about spiritualism the turn of the century.” Yeah, you’re right, W.B. Yeates and many others. There’s “The Golden Bough” written by James Frazer, which had a huge influence before the T.S. Elliot era, but on many people, because I think the empire was going to all these different parts of the world, you know, and discovering new cultures, ways of living, being, after they conquered them, of course. And possibly some fascination, which in those days, and I’m being careful here, in those days, the words would’ve been the primitive cultures from empire days, as they were seen in contrast to civilization. So a fascination with what became known as spiritualism from those days, and those are the words from those times. I’m not using those words for today. So I think there might’ve been something about going out, if we imagine 100 years ago, more 120 years, going out to all these far-flung places of the British empire and seeing what might’ve been strange, weird fascination with, you know, discovering what Shakespeare might call the Calibans, the strange, primal, other creatures, other cultures of the times coming in through spiritualism, perhaps. This is all speculation, because we’re trying to understand the culture 100, 120 years later, of course. But definitely W.B. Gates, I mean T.S. Elliot was, I mean so many of the poets, the writers, all of them, absolutely, before it gets smashed out with the First World War, but you’re absolutely right.
Okay, so thank you very much everybody, and really appreciate, and hope you have a great rest of the weekend.