This morning I went to an event in a park, where an Oral Storyteller, a Seanchaí, performed under the 1,000 year old Allerton Oak [a tree where people have been meeting since 1086]
I knew that a Holmes story was on the agenda, along with several others, it was billed as an ‘oral tale of Sherlock Holmes and his best kept secret.’ Yep…you guessed what that secret turned out to be!!
The seanchaí, Jonty Monahan, prefaced the story by explaining it had been in the oral story world since 1900, and had been past around in pubs and underground clubs, mainly in the avant-garde and bohemian worlds.
Jonty then told the story of Holmes and Watson hunting Spring-Heeled Jack around the streets of Liverpool and meeting the famous gang the ‘Rips’. [So called because they met in grave yards – from R.I.P on the tombstones.] The leader of the gang blackmails Holmes with something he has discovered and this leads to Holmes failing to solve the Spring-Heeled Jack mystery. The subject of the blackmail is later revealed to Watson; Holmes and Watson had been caught in flagrante delicto in their hotel room by a bell boy who had told the Rip Gang leader. At the end of the story, a sad John Watson, reflects that if it hadn’t been for Holmes seeking to protect John from scandal and divorce, Sherlock Holmes would have been the toast of England having caught Spring-Heeled Jack.
Speaking to Jonty after the event, I asked about his feelings on Mary Morstan or other Watson wives, in light of the story. Jonty summed it up eloquently;
“Mary or any other wife were merely a deflection in the original stories and consequently hid an aspect of Doyle’s modern thinking and insight into alternative forms of true love. Just as Holmes led in the world of forensics, he and Watson also had the chance to allow conservative readers to understand how a homosexual love affair could be stable and an asset to society. But the culture at the time won out.”
I like that summation. Maybe the culture is receptive now? Softly Softly we go! It was a lovely surprise to have a m/m century old fan fiction told to me in great detail and with great storytelling skill.
If people don’t think that Watson was showing how a same-sex love affair could stretch out over decades, they were clearly reading the wrong books.
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