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Post by dem bones on Dec 20, 2007 18:41:43 GMT
Joe Cooper - The Case Of The Cottingley Fairies (Pocket, 1990) In 1917 two cousins living in West Yorkshire claimed to have photographed fairies. Their story captured the imagination of British society, but why were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the theosophist Edward Gardner and many others so willing to be convinced that the photographs were genuine? Had Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths really seen fairies at the bottom of the garden?
Joe Cooper interviewed Elsie and Frances over six years and as he researched the case their prevarications give way to confessions. But to her death Frances maintained that "there were fairies at Cottingley" and the last photograph of 'The Fairy Bower' has never been satisfactorily explained.
The Case Of The Cottingley Fairies gives a balanced insider's account of the affair. Joe Cooper, who was an advisor on the film about the affair, Fairytale: A True Story, has uncovered a strange and twisting tale that reveals a great deal about the human will to believe. The genesis of this book is the four articles Cooper contributed to The Unexplained in the early 'eighties and The Case Of The Cottingley Fairies follows both women in their later years, embracing their new-found celebrity, issuing confessions - even down to how they faked the photos - only to retract them, squabbling with Cooper (and each other), ranting about "long-haired lefty poets", spouting right wing politics and generally being grumpy old women. A seminal appearance on Nationwide in 1971 gets the bandwagon in full flow once again but seemingly turns Elsie and Frances's heads, and soon both they and their story come unglued, screwing up any hopes the ukulele-toting author had for the book he'd originally planned and making him eternally grateful to the editor of The Unexplained who'd insisted he write up the story from a neutral point of view. The most interesting aspect of the case is how willingly intelligent people were prepared to swallow their story wholesale when it was abundantly clear their 'fairies' had been copied from an illustration in the Princess Mary Yearbook (Elsie, on the evidence of a fairy painting included in the photo-section, was a skilled illustrator) and, as, one of the ladies helpfully points out, in one of the photo's you can even see the pin propping up one of the figures. The film is disappointingly saccharine where-as the "true" story would have made for something far more interesting. A great study of two children who perpetrate a hoax to the point where they actually come to believe that some of it was true all along.
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Post by redbrain on Dec 21, 2007 10:37:22 GMT
Joe Cooper - The Case Of The Cottingley Fairies (Pocket, 1990) In 1917 two cousins living in West Yorkshire claimed to have photographed fairies. Their story captured the imagination of British society, but why were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the theosophist Edward Gardner and many others so willing to be convinced that the photographs were genuine? Had Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths really seen fairies at the bottom of the garden? The most interesting aspect of the case is how willingly intelligent people were prepared to swallow their story wholesale when it was abundantly clear their 'fairies' had been copied from an illustration in the Princess Mary Yearbook (Elsie, on the evidence of a fairy painting included in the photo-section, was a skilled illustrator) and, as, one of the ladies helpfully points out, in one of the photo's you can even see the pin propping up one of the figures. I don't think it's at all surprising that Edward Gardner was a believer - but Arthur Conan Doyle is a more interesting case. It presumably has to do with a widespread desire to depart from reason - escape from the tyranny of rationalism. As such, I suppose the fairies are a comparitively harmless example. The film is disappointingly saccharine where-as the "true" story would have made for something far more interesting. A great study of two children who perpetrate a hoax to the point where they actually come to believe that some of it was true all along. I think the film exhibits the same tendency towards irrationality - the desire to believe in the fairies. A seminal appearance on Nationwide in 1971 gets the bandwagon in full flow once again This week, on BBC4, a programme about Abigail's Party showed a load of clips from Nationwide. I was surprised that such clips still exist. I wonder whether the Nationwide footage of the fairymongers still exists. |
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Post by carolinec on Jan 10, 2008 19:31:38 GMT
I live near Cottingley! There was much excitement in the local press when the last living "girl" (she was quite old then) went public and explained how it had all been a hoax. I'm quite surprised Bradford MDC (of which Cottingley is a part) doesn't make the area more of a tourist attraction because of the story.
I've not seen the film, I must admit.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 13, 2008 10:43:24 GMT
It presumably has to do with a widespread desire to depart from reason - escape from the tyranny of rationalism. Yes, but the skeptic in me suggests it has even more to do with being the centre of attention, seeing your name in the newspapers and appearing on TV. I hasten to add that not every 'eyewitness' is like this, but I've met and, on occasion, interviewed people on the 'paranormal' scene whose entire being is consumed by this need to have their photo in the local rag. What I found was that everybody who'd witnessed a 'supernatural' event was a reluctant interviewee. Until ... Sometimes I'd say, "yeah, I can see your point. I've no wish to trouble you further about these painful memories. Forget the article - it was a stupid idea. Please accept my apologies." In a significant number of cases, they'd get back to me by return post. "Oh, you've talked me into it." I've no way of knowing if the Cottingley women were of this ilk but I strongly suspect it and so, I think, did Joe Cooper. |
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Post by redbrain on Jan 13, 2008 10:56:20 GMT
It presumably has to do with a widespread desire to depart from reason - escape from the tyranny of rationalism. Yes, but the skeptic in me suggests it has even more to do with being the centre of attention, seeing your name in the newspapers and appearing on TV. I hasten to add that not every 'eyewitness' is like this, but I've met and, on occasion, interviewed people on the 'paranormal' scene whose entire being is consumed by this need to have their photo in the local newspaper. What I found was that everybody who'd witnessed a 'supernatural' event was a reluctant interviewee. Until ... Sometimes I'd say, "yeah, I can see your point. I've no wish to trouble you further about these painful memories. Forget the article - it was a stupid idea. Please accept my apologies." In a significant number of cases, they'd get back to me by return post. "Oh, you've talked me into it." I've no way of knowing if the Cottingley women were of this ilk but I strongly suspect it and so, I think, did Joe Cooper. I can't disagree with that, apart from one small quibble - the Cottingley fairy girls were too early for contemporary TV coverage. But I'm sure that they basked in the press coverage - and who could blame them? The desire for celebrity is both widespread and strong. However, my original point - about a desire to escape the tyranny of rationalism - wasn't intended as a comment on the girls' motivation. Rather, I was talking about the desire of other people (including Conan Doyle) to believe in the fairies. |
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Post by dem bones on Jan 13, 2008 11:09:20 GMT
Oh yeah, I got your original point and even agree with you. I can't recall if there was any TV coverage at the time but it was when they came back from the dead (as it were), did Nationwide and local interviews, that the whole story (and their relationship with each other) began to fall to pieces. After that it was confession/ retraction/ confession ....
I love the book because Cooper plays fair with the reader rather than gloss over the bits that don't fit in with his original theory even though they pretty much trash the articles he'd contributed to The Unexplained. I admire him so much for that.
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Post by redbrain on Jan 13, 2008 11:52:03 GMT
I can't recall if there was any TV coverage at the time I can't find the dates for the Cottingley fairies, just now - but weren't they in the 20s or 30s? Here are the dates for early TV broadcasting in Britain: 1928 experimental transmission of still pictures by the BBC November 1936 Alexandra Palace opens - broadcasting actual televsion sound and pictures for the first time in Britain. It broadcasts to the London area only. September 1939 the broadcasts cease for the duration of the Second World War. June 1946 broadcasting from Alexandra Palace re-commences. |
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Post by Calenture on Jan 13, 2008 22:52:59 GMT
...I'm sure that they basked in the press coverage - and who could blame them? The desire for celebrity is both widespread and strong. True, I'm sure. Years back, a friend who lives a few miles away on the Portreath road, told me about someone she knew further down that road - a chap who photographed fairies. The cottages on that road - which leads to the sea - have gardens which back onto a stream. My friend told me that the chap used to set up his camera at late evening. He had shown her some of the photographs, but was normally secretive about them. She described the fairies as being "quite ugly". The other fairy film that I was trying to remember was Photographing Fairies (aka Phantasm). I think it's a better film than the other one mentioned here, if a bit morbid, with the last glimpse of a fairy being seen down a 'tunnel' as a condemned killer falls to his death at the end of a rope. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 14, 2008 5:57:38 GMT
from memory didn't someone close to Conan Doyle die and it kind of flipped him into hoping the afterlife was true. Plus of course one can't underestimate the pressure of the culture at the time
Craig
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Post by Calenture on Jan 14, 2008 9:24:10 GMT
I was trying to remember if it was Conan Doyle or Harry Houdini who wanted to contact the dead, Craig, so I did a spot of Googling (whoever it was was probably the original Psychic Detective  ). This page turned up the goods on Harry Houdini Master Magician, Debunker & Psychic Investigator...Houdini did not start out attacking fake mediums because he did not believe in the supernatural. In fact, he had gone to them in an attempt to try and contact his dead mother, but found that the mediums he met were often frauds. This was when he turned to exposing them, still searching for the truth.And here's a quote from a fascinating page about Conan Doyle I've just found and linked here: Conan Doyle - Spiritualism and FairiesThe magician Harry Houdini, a showman continually alert to opportunities for self-promotion, publicly exposed mediumistic trickery in his stage shows and wrote pamphlets opposing fraudulent mediums. Yet some spiritualists claimed that Houdini had genuine spiritualistic powers, refusing to accept Houdini's own statements that only deception was involved in his stage illusions.
Arthur Conan Doyle devoted a whole chapter of his book The Edge of the Unknown to a detailed argument that Houdini had genuine psychic power, but wouldn't admit it. Curiously, Doyle and Houdini remained friends, in spite of public clashes over spiritualism. Perhaps they shared an appreciation of the value of public self-promotion.
Doyle was a credulous dupe for various kinds of nonsense. He not only believed in spiritualism and all of the phenomena of the seance room, but he also believed in fairies. Convincing, huh?  Damn, and I so much want to believe in fairies!  |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 14, 2008 9:56:58 GMT
I do believe in fairies, I do I do!!!
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Post by redbrain on Jan 14, 2008 18:36:25 GMT
I do believe in fairies, I do I do!!! I'm very glad to hear it. When a child doesn't believe in fairies, a fairy dies. Why do so many people think the Cottingley pictures were faked?  |
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Post by dem bones on Feb 20, 2013 17:03:16 GMT
Monica Kulling - Fairytale (Random House, 1997) Blurb: Do You Believe?
Elsie and Frances knew all about the wonderful fairies of Cottingley Glen. But other people, especially, grownups, didn't believe in the tiny sprites' They didn't know where or how to look for them. If only the girls could photograph the fairies and show them to the world...
The problem was not that they couldn't.
The problem was that they did.I never knew there was a film tie-in until this pre-battered copy turned up on my trusty dealer's stall. Slimline is the order of the day, a mere 122 pages of BIG print, probably do-able in half an hour, were I not still miffed that the movie is such a cop out. "Do you believe?" I believe Joe Cooper's hilarious warts-and-all original is deserving of a documentary.
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