Gavin Scott |
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Gavin Scott

19 Apr

The Age of Treachery officially launched

My beloved mother-in-law was a publisher in New Zealand and I think her greatest delight in the  process was when the next book was ready to be launched  and she could say " I think it's time we had a party." Well,  we had a party this weekend here in Santa Monica to celebrate the official launch of The Age of Treachery and it was terrific.  Our house and garden  full of a hundred and forty loving and wonderful friends celebrating the first Duncan Forrester adventure and giving me a...

14:57 / Blog Post / Books
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15 Apr

Punch welcomes in the New Year

This is the first Punch cartoon Forrester saw in 1946. It depicts, rather movingly I think, Father Time saying farewell to the terrible year of 1945. But it wasn't long before 1946 brought its own tribulations, notably in the form of America's reluctance, now the war was won, to loan Britain the money to keep going. One result was a shortage of consumer goods - exemplified by this cartoon of a shop with not VERY much to sell ...

16:16 / Blog Post
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12 Apr

The Age of Treachery: 1946 in books

I'm not saying that Duncan Forrester, who had a fairly busy year in 1946, read all the books here, but at least he might have picked them up in Foyles, Hatchards or even W. H., Smith and considered buying them. Certainly, as a historian of the ancient world, he would have taken notice of this January offering: It was the first of a new series to be known as the Penguin Classics,  and was a translation by E. V. Rieu. Over the next ten years it was to become Britain's best-selling book, and...

10:31 / Blog Post / Books
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11 Apr

The Lone Ranger tours McCloud

I was recently restoring one of my sculptures which hangs in the magnificent Wild West era McCloud Hotel,  near Mount Shasta in Northern California. While I was at work one of the characters in the sculpture escaped and was only recaptured after many adventures, as I think these pictures prove ...

09:48 / Art / Blog Post / Pop Culture
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31 Mar

The Age of Austerity

One of the many books of social history I consulted while researching The Age of Treachery was David Kynaston’s wonderful Austerity Britain. Here are some fascinating snippets about Britain in 1946 from its pages. By September 1946 the number of married women at work was down from a wartime peak of 7.2 million to 5.8 million. 4 million British servicemen were demobilized between June 1945 and January 1947 and couples who might not have seen each other for years found themselves having to get used to each other again, which the divorce figures...

13:51 / Blog Post / Books
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1 Comment
28 Mar

Progress at the airport!

Some of you may remember my video diary last month urging Santa Monica City Council to remove as soon as possible the parked planes from the part of Santa Monica Airport to make way for a park. This is what the first 6 acres looked like not long after the video, as photographed by my friend and fellow campaigner Michael Brodsky. Here's Michael's picture of what the same 6 acres looks like today. Bravo our council, plus Rick Cole and Nelson Hernandez! And here's what I'd personally like to see when park designer Mark Rios...

19:36 / Blog Post
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