A treasure of a book

Odd Shoes and Medals is the memoir of the late Ron Hudson. It was pleasing to read this 4-star review: 

A most brilliant book. I was able to relate to most of this account, not only because I knew Ron but because I was in the Fleet Air Arm during the same time Ron was.

Most ex-servicemen will be able to follow this with some kinship especially those born around early 1940s and joining the mob when 17.

There is a lot of Ron's humour brought out; you sometimes have to read between the lines but it really is a great read, whether you were in the mob or not.

I treasure this book now, as sadly Ron is no longer with us, but anyone who knew him would know what a great story teller he was.

[I'd like to think Ron would like the review too!]

 Amazon K - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Odd-Shoes-Medals-Ronald-Hudson/dp/1484172140/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464869242&sr=1-20&keywords=nik+morton

Odd Shoes and Medals Ronald Hudson Non-fiction from Manatee Books.
 “War broke out when I was eight. My short pants had holes in the backside, which was doubly embarrassing because I didn’t have any underwear and anyone could see my bum. So I used to walk sideways to school if any other kids or grown-ups came by. Miss Grafton, the teacher, let me stay at my desk during playtime to avoid embarrassing exposure. She liked me a lot and I used to take love letters for her to an American soldier. “

These reminiscences cover a span of over seventy years and will jog several memories and remind people that the so-called poverty of present times is nothing compared to the 1940s and 1950s. Young Ron and his sister Audrey were shunted from one home to another, in excess of a dozen, ‘fostered’ by ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, and indeed for many years the pair of them didn’t know where the other sibling lived! His absentee father barely gave him a thought – though he did present him with ill-fitting clogs, once…

Occasionally, he was shown kindness and, despite moments of great despair, he carried on and eventually joined the Royal Navy. Ironically, for the first time he found a place he could call his home: the navy. He travelled the world, saw the sights, and ‘learned a trade’. When he was demobbed prematurely by politicians, he embarked on a career in British Gas, and has a few amusing tales to tell about (nameless) customers! He set up his own business and became the oldest registered gas fitter in the country, until he retired at age eighty.

As told to Nik Morton 

[Ron died 11 April, 2015, aged 84]
See http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/rip-ron-hudson.html

Reminiscences – Polka-dot parade

Fifty years ago today (19 October 2015) I joined the Royal Navy; I was a few months over seventeen.

In those early days I jotted down occasional impressions, and some of them have already been posted in my blog under the ‘reminiscences’ heading.

Here’s another, from early training days in HMS Raleigh:

The day it snowed we were the Guard. The snow did not lie very thickly, but it whitened the parade ground. Our guard marched at the slope to the rear of the parade. After the ‘Halt!’ command we were ‘into line left turned’.

The entire parade was wearing gabardines. At the ‘off caps!’ order I was confronted by an amusing sight. While the parade stood at ease, their caps (held to their rear) appeared like a series of polka-dots; this was accentuated by the white base of ground snow. And with the varying heights of numerous individuals the caps rose and fell in rows very much like lines of surf. If you can imagine the bounce of a ping pong ball slowed-down, it would look something like these rows of white caps.

Anyway, the polka-dot parade abstracted my thoughts from the cold.

I retired from the RN on 2 August 1989.

First week - new issue of uniform,

including boots;

we had to sew on our branch and name badges;

the car was not mine!

In re – Solar Pons

Today I spent about four hours painting the ceiling of the library. Removing knick-knacks, clocks etc and covering the furniture takes up some time, and then taking down the top shelves of books was also necessary. This gave me the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with a number of books on those same shelves.

Back in 1976 I came across a UK paperback (Futura) of The Adventures of Solar Pons by August Derleth.

 

I’d heard of Derleth through his fantasy and science fiction writing. Many years before I’d devoured the Sherlock Holmes stories and since Conan Doyle’s demise there’d been a steady stream of so-called new Holmes cases penned by new hands, not least being Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr’s The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (1954).

 

I was drawn by the Solar Pons cover and wondered if this pastiche could really work. I was completely won over by Derleth’s creation. Sadly, at the time, this seemed to be the only UK version of the Pons adventures. It remained one of my favourite books; later, I picked up three US books (pictured below).

Pons was born about 1880 in Prague. Public school education, Oxford 1899. Unmarried. Member: Savile, Diogenes, Athenaeum, Cliff Dwellers, Lambs. Established private inquiry practice at 7B Praed Street, 1907. British Intelligence, World Wars I and II. Widely travelled. Residences: New York, Chicago, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Rome, 7B Praed Street, London W2. Telephone Ambassador 1000.

As a young man of nineteen attending the University of Wisconsin, and having learned from Conan Doyle that there would be no more Sherlock Holmes stories, Derleth stabbed a finger at a random spot in his calendar and made a note: ‘In re – Sherlock Holmes’. When that date arrived he sat down and wrote 'The Adventure of the Black Narcissus', featuring his pastiche creation Solar Pons. It sold immediately to Dragnet magazine and he went on to pen further adventures. In one day, by missing classes, he penned three pastiches. His impetus came to a sudden halt as the stock market collapse of 1929 swept away many magazines.

 

That might have been that; however, some ten years later he submitted a Pons tale for a new anthology, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, engineered by Frederic Dannay and Vincent Starrett. At the time, Derleth had only written five tales, not enough for a book collection; so, encouraged by Starrett, Derleth wrote seven more and the first book was published in 1945 – ‘In Re: Sherlock Holmes’ – The Adventures of Solar Pons. Other collections followed:

The Memoirs of Solar Pons (1951),

The Return of Solar Pons (1958),

The Reminiscences of Solar Pons (1961) and

The Casebook of Solar Pons (1965).

The Chronicles of Solar Pons (1973) appeared posthumously, Derleth dying in 1971.

It is perhaps obvious that Derleth chose to echo the Holmes titles in a number of books. The chronicler of Pons’ adventures is Dr Lyndon Parker; they met in mid-1919 or maybe June 1921 (there’s a fascinating chronology at the end of The Reminiscences.

As Vincent Starrett says in his introduction, ‘Solar Pons is not a caricature of Sherlock Holmes. He is, rather, a clever impersonator, with a twinkle in his eye, which tells us that he knows he is not Holmes, and knows that we know it, but that he hopes we will like him anyway for what he symbolizes.’

Enjoy these stories as they were intended, loving pastiches of the Master’s consulting detective. At present these stories are not available on Kindle.

NOTE. Since writing this post, I've learned about a superb site all about Solar Pons. Definitely worth a lengthy browse. http://www.solarpons.com/