There is a family tree in the cellar, when you can access it. It looks like I may have been named after my Grandfather Simon, which explains the journal in the bunk room. The fissure between brothers was between that Simon and Uncle Herbert, the latter of which is actually my grand-uncle. So there we go.
Marion is called Mary on the family tree.
In the Library
I requested A Sightseer's Guide to Reddington by Andrew Darle the other day, and I got it today.
Anne Babbage borrowed it in '82, so she's been here a while. Lord Evanson borrowed it in 87, and then it became popular when M. Lowry and Simon P. Jones got it in subsequent years (92 and 93). I am Simon Jones, clearly. And I wrote my name in red.
Anyway, Reddington is in Fenn Aries. It has an "Ajeran" canopy house, and they note that Ilex x meserveae is a holly distinct to the region.
The second-tallest mountain is Mt. Perma, where Lord William Epsen had his home Featherfall Keep. His son, Lionel Epsen, left it to his sister, who kept it going until she married in 1951. (Her Ladyship?)
They say Featherfall was built by the first king Orinda Aries -- Orinda, I now know, also being the name of the statue in the cloister.
Fancy people live on Trinsdale Lake.
When we get to Mount Holly, we talk about the estate, which apparently as old as Reddington but has been closed to the public since 1966, when the school closed. I couldn't have attended it, nor could my father -- but my granduncle and grandfather surely did.
It should be noted there are a lot of blue hues in the illustrations here, until we reach Mainway Station Bazaar, which is red. The book cautions it's dangerous because of environmental factors. I assume this is a coded way of saying that's where bad red things happen.
The Archives
For various reasons, I ended up drafting the archives, and I'm taking it as a chance to look through a family scrapbook.
My mom, under the pseudonym Marion Marigold, wrote the book "Swim Bird" and published it in '85. Gale Hermes wrote that Mary didn't consider herself a success in '86.
Apparently I inspired her to write in the first place. She wrote "Red Prince" for me, but everyone assumed it's veiled criticism of royalists. I guess she really didn't want to be associated with the Sinclairs -- or anyone else in her family of origin -- so I assume they were all royalists (aside from my granduncle who hid her and helped her escape).
A later page says that Caleb Manning and publisher Phillip White were arrested for associations with the Trinsdale bombing. (So the lake where fancy, presumably royalist, people live.) They're meant to be members of RLCF, aka The Children of Black Water.
Ruffington press denied everything. They also defended an associate editor who was arrested in '83 -- totally unnamed.
After that, my mom left Ruffington Press.
And THEN, in '87, she left entirely after a luncheon in Trinsdale.
The article about the jewelry heist taking away the Red Crown sure explains why the secured display room (which I will find later, eventually, hopefully) has just the paper crown these days.
One new connection
The letter to Herbert in the parlor is signed by M. Lowry -- someone who checked out the book on Reddington! He mentions people called the Oldhams. I haven't seen those folks referenced elsewhere, I don't think.
I wonder if M. Lowry is a conspirator.