Charles Birkin website

[johnnymains]

Probably ill-advised as 2018 will no doubt vanish under the joyous sounds of nuclear explosions, but I'm going to try and build the most comprehensive biographical website to Charles Birkin

Site here

[Jojo Lapin X]

He simply does not strike you as the sort of person who would write the sort of things he wrote.

[johnnymains]

I know, right?

However - this following announcement should be a lovely Xmas present to you all


charlesbirkin.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/2.html

[mrhappy]

Dec 25, 2017 12:15:36 GMT johnnymains said:

I know, right?

However - this following announcement should be a lovely Xmas present to you all


charlesbirkin.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/2.html

This looks wonderful! Thank you!

Mr. Happy

[andydecker]

A fine start.

I always find it difficult to imagine that Birkin wrote most of his stories when he was over sixty. It seems so late in life to produce such work.

[Knygathin]

Infinitesimally little by Charles Birkin available on Archive.org. Any chance of seeing PDFs of The Kiss of Death and Dark Menace? I am not intent on hunting down those two collections for my bookshelf, but there are still a few stories in them that I'd really like to read!

[Swampirella]

Apr 29, 2021 6:45:39 GMT Knygathin said:

Infinitesimally little by Charles Birkin available on Archive.org. Any chance of seeing PDFs of The Kiss of Death and Dark Menace? I am not intent on hunting down those two collections for my bookshelf, but there are still a few stories in them that I'd really like to read!

Good news, Kny! www.luminist.org/archives/ has "Dark Menace" as well as "Haunted Dancers".

[Knygathin]

WOW!!! Thanks Swampi. That is great!

[Knygathin]

I am going for a roadtrip around your lovely country. Aside from some of the national parks, I think the local haunts of authors will be interesting and give added meaning and understanding of their works, ... among them Tolkien, Arthur Machen, the Lake District poets, and the wonderful Charles Birkin. I was going to visit Dunsany Castle too, but had forgotten it's in Ireland! I will avoid the biggest cities, because they are no longer the English cities they used to be. I'll probably never set my foot in London again. John Cleese is right.

Baronet Charles Birkin's old home in Henshill, Hawkhurst, Kent, is an exquisite castle, or smaller castle or manor, and the whole vast grounds surrounding it seem to be completely closed off from public approach. The rabble will unlikely get past the guard booth. Birkin must have been immeasurably wealthy.

I also think only the happiest among persons could have written such horrifying stories as he did.

[Knygathin]

Great Britain. A neatly familiar looking island on the map, becomes a huge continent when magnifying the tangle of roads. I'll skip Stonehenge, which seems to be violently exploited. It would only sadden me. (Jack Vance was once there in the 50s.) Instead I wonder what hills may give me the best chance of meeting the little people.

[Shrink Proof]

May 13, 2023 6:39:34 GMT Knygathin said:

Great Britain. A neatly familiar looking island on the map, becomes a huge continent when magnifying the tangle of roads. I'll skip Stonehenge, which seems to be violently exploited. It would only sadden me. (Jack Vance was once there in the 50s.) Instead I wonder what hills may give me the best chance of meeting the little people.

Despite the best attempts of The Usual Suspects to wreck it, you've got a wide choice, but, as you say, getting there (wherever there might be) is the main difficulty. Certainly, some of Britain's hills are over exploited and hence over populated with visiting humans - places like a lot of the Lake District, obvious tourist magnets like Snowdon/Yr Wydffa or Ben Nevis - but there are definitely still areas where the boundaries between worlds feel thinner. Some of this doesn't just relate to the topography but also to the atmosphere of the place. By this I mean the weather, the company or lack of it, your own physical and mental state at the time, etc. I know what you mean about Stonehenge, but Callanish on the Isle of Lewis can be either temporarily swamped by the arrival of a coach trip in mid-summer or lonely, spooky and scary in the sort of mist that only the Hebrides can generate when you're alone there in January. It can also be oddly uplifting under the Milky Way and the Northern Lights.

I freely admit to being biased, but Scotland's Northern and Western Isles, and the far North of the mainland (much of the Highlands, but especially the Torridon and Coigach/Assynt areas) are where you're likely to encounter the little people or at the very least feel different. And if you want to meet one of the big people, try Ben Macdui in the Cairngorms - as discussed in this Vault thread.

[Knygathin]

Thanks Shrink Proof. That is a very interesting post. I will do my best to stay off the beaten tracks. Of course, as an outsider it is not easy, but intution can sometimes go a long way. It can also relate to the small detours your feet are willing to take within one and the same topography. After Machen's Wales I will head for Shropshire, and on towards the Scottish Highlands, probably no further north than Inverness. If I have energy left, I am tempted by Torridon, Coigach, and Assynt, but that is outside of my map. I'll draw the roads on a slip of paper. I will focus the trip mainly on the inlands of Great Britain, medieval historic sites and nature. I understand the shores are very beautiful, especially up north, but I am thinking of saving that for another time. But on my way back down I must of course visit Whitby (huge tourist magnet). And Peter Cushing's Whitstable as conclusion. Birkin's Isles of Scilly are, I am afraid, out of the question this time around.

Still much planning to do. There is a nice photo of de la Mare at a locale south of Oxford called Garsington Manor. There was a previous discussion on the Vault about it. It looks like a mausoleum, but is some kind of exclusive opera. But I doubt it is open for the public to just walk in here.

Autumn is perhaps the grandest time to visit the hills, but I will be going now. 

[helrunar]

I would love to visit Callanish. Your description of it is beautiful.

I visited Stonehenge in July of 1995 expecting to feel nothing at all and was inspired and deeply moved by the potent energetic atmosphere of the site. No matter how hard they try, the tin busybodies of the present era cannot diminish the deep Magic that abides in that place. The whole plain of Salisbury is really magical and there are sites not far at all from Stonehenge that aren't on the coach routes. Wayland's Smithy is one--it was the site of some filming in the 1970s classic serial The Moon Stallion, the final work of author Brian Hayles.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland%27s_Smithy

Hel.

[Knygathin]

I was about to go this morning, but am suddelnly getting cold feet about this trip. I need another day to think it over.

The battery in the car sometimes dies overnight after the car has been started and stopped multiple times during the same day, as when going on several errands. It is one thing to charge the battery in the garage. But what if the battery dies on me after a chilly night by the roadside in the middle of nowhere. Not a very desirable situation. I have the charger in the car, but it needs an electric socket of course.

My thoughts are so romantically involved in this trip I have been musing to do for a long time. Suddenly rationality steps in. That's not like me. Maybe it is that I am getting old.

Hmmm, I have always been rash and impulsive when it comes to spontaneous adventures. But now I wonder if this one borders on stupidity.

[Knygathin]

I will buy an extra car battery, and make some spare space for it.