View source for Interview with Dame Jean Conan Doyle by John C. Tibbets

Interview of [[Lena Annette Jean Conan Doyle|Dame Jean Conan Doyle]] (aka Lady Jean Bromet <ref>Dame Jean Conan Doyle married Sir Geoffrey Bromet in 1965</ref>), the fifth child of [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] conducted at her home in Cadogan Square in London, in october 1988, by John C. Tibbets.

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== Interview ==

{{audio|1988-10-interview-dame-jean-conan-doyle-by-john-c-tibbetts.mp3}}



== Transcript ==

'''Lady Bromet''' :  Well, I send my greetings to
the Alkali Plainsmen amongst your
membership, particularly to Jon Lellenberg,
and to Milt Perry, and to Stan and Reenie
Carmack. I'm sitting here in my flat now
with John Tibbetts and he's been telling me a
little bit about your special Scion Branch of
the Baker Street Irregulars. I know there's
lots of branches in America, but it's so nice
to have this opportunity to talk personally
to one of them. I believe you are stationed in
Kansas City. I remember going to Kansas
City with my father and admiring that
splendid statue of the Indian. That was in
the early 1920's. I'm quite sure that Kansas
City looks very different today, but how
nice your interest in Sherlock Holmes
remains.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Lady Bromet, in talking with you, why
don't you first introduce yourself in your
relationship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
and tell us a bit about where we are sitting,
what day this is, right at this point in time?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Well, I am Jean Conan Doyle, and I am
the youngest child of my father, Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle. He had two children by his
first marriage, Mary and Kingsley. Kingsley,
alas, died in the first World war, and Mary
died about ten years ago. Then I had two
elder brothers, Dennis, who died in the
1940's, and Adrian, who died in 1970. No, I
think Dennis died in the 1950's. One rather
loses track of these sad things anyhow,
that's the family. I'm the only one left and I
have a flat in London which is near Harrods
and near Sloane Square, very good shopping
centers. Today we're sitting in my what used
to be called drawing room but now can only
Copyright John C. Tibbetts 1992, 2004
be called workroom because everything
happens in this room. It's the dining room
and the sitting room and the television room
and most important of all it's my office.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : To your left is a very imposing portrait
of a gentleman in military uniform. Tell me
about him.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Ah. That is my very beloved husband
who died five years ago. He's Air Vice-
Marshall Sir Geoffrey Bromet, and after he
came out of the Air Force, he was Governor
of the Isle of Man for seven years and then
afterwards, he was in charge of air raid
precautions for Birmingham, no Coventry,
which was the city that didn't want to run
its own air raid precautions and the
government decided that they really must
have them and my husband was put in
charge of that.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Flanking the image are two swords.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes, that's very observant of you. The
smaller one of them is a naval dirk which
was his dirk when he was at Dartmouth and
he was in the Royal Navy and the other one
is a replica of the Sword of State of the Isle
of Man and this was presented to him some
years after he'd retired, and we were very
touched when it was sent to us.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : On the opposite wall, almost as if you
were looking at each other, is a portrait of
you, in younger years — if you would tell me
about the circumstances of that.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh, one really shouldn't have a
photograph of yourself in your own drawing
room, but it means an awful lot to me
because I served on, for one year in the Air
Force after I married, and during that time I
had to be out quite a lot. On one of my visits
away, my husband had this portrait painted
from a photograph and this was to be a very
surprising first anniversary present to me
and I was so touched because I never
thought that anyone would want to have a
portrait of me and then suddenly to be given
one by one's very dear husband was indeed a
wonderful surprise and I'm certainly not
going to take the portrait down now.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Would you please tell me about the
young woman that we see smiling out at us
from that canvas? What was she like in those
days?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh, I wasn't so young. I was director of
the Women's Royal Air Force, and I had lots
and lots on my plate waiting to be done, but
I loved it. I loved working with people and
got an enormous admiration for the men in
the Royal Air Force and, indeed, for our own
women in the Air Force.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : At that time, was there a greatly
developed Women's Corps or were you a
part in establishing the women's component
of the Royal Air Force?

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, cause I'd been in the Air Force for
twenty-eight years. I'd been in all sorts of
different phases of the Air Force, but by the
time I was Directory, and before that, we
had become part of the Royal Air Force, and
my commission was in the Royal Air Force,
not in the Women's Royal Air Force. There
was no separate service. It was just a
convenient term to show that we were
women and in certain respects we might
have to be treated differently than men
because of our different physical stature.
But so, but in the early days. there was a
separate corps which was the Women's
Auxiliary Air Force, and I belonged to that
during the war. I joined before the war.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : At that time, was it still rather unusual
for a woman, in uniform, in that branch of
the service?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Not really. I mean when war broke out,
and we women were sent into detachments
of fifty or so to various RAF stations, you
did come across some elderly men who were
very shocked at having women and wouldn't
allow them in the Officer's Mess and one
friend of mine who was made Mess Catering
Officer, had to have her meals behind a
screen in the Officers' Mess all by herself. It
was ridiculous and I think of that, think of
that now, that later on I lived in the Senior
Officer's Mess for two years, I was the only
woman in that mess.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : As Air Commandant, do I have this title
correct?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : As Air Commandant, I would assume
then that a great many men worked under or
for you?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Not particularly as Air Commandant,
but they did when I was commanding a
station, when I was a Group Officer, A
Group Captain, and then indeed, I had rather
more men on the ???? staff than women and
a lot of National Service Men for whom I
had great admiration and they seemed to find
life in the service very interesting. So much
so, that after they were demobilized, they
used to come back at weekends and stay on
the camp. They had sort of reunions every
so often, because they all admitted it was
one of the happiest times of their lives.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : At what time, then, did you separate
from the service or have you maintained
connection?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh, I retired, as one does, with pension
in 1966, but since then I've had quite a lot of
work with welfare organizations connected
with the services. One was, first of all, the
Victory Club in London where service
people stay for a very small amount of
money and it's a very fine club and then I
was a Governor at the Royal Stand Garter
for fourteen years and that's for disabled
men and now recently they're opening their
doors to women too, but badly disabled men
and some from the Somme and the Falklands
and that was fascinating work because they
are such splendid people and they don't
complain and they make one feel very
humble really to realize that we complain
about such little things, but they don't.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I hear in your voice a genuine concern,
then, for continued public service.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes, I don't look upon it as public
service. I just look upon it as something one
does very naturally and that it is a great
privilege to know the people who are
disabled. And they're very kind about talking
to one and telling one about their quite
extraordinary experiences.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Let's go back to the war years. I'm
assuming that many of the men that you
would have worked with during the war
would have known your father. Is that
correct?

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, they didn't. I must say, that during
the war years, the only time that I was ever
reminded that I was the daughter of my
father. During the war years, I was
sometimes called "Dr. Watson" or "sleuthie"
or something like that but this was all from
short-term officers and I really didn't mind
it, but when we got down to the nitty-gritty
of the permanent Air Force, all this stopped
and people knew me as myself and, in fact,
on the day when I was leaving the Air Force
and went round to say good-bye to some of
the more senior officers, one of them said,
having just read the newspaper, "I'd no idea
you were related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
at all." And that's how it should be.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : How about your husband's feelings in
that regard? When did he first become aware
that this woman that he was interested in
was the daughter of Conan Doyle?

'''Lady Bromet''' : He always knew and then, he wasn't a
great reader, but then he made a point of
reading a lot of my father's works.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : How did he handle that? Did he kid you
about it or did he feel like enough people at
this time are calling you nicknames that he
would respectfully withdraw from that kind
of comment?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Nobody was calling me nicknames in
those days. This was just a short term thing
during the war and he didn't mind at all. He
always backed me up when people came to
interview me and seem. It always amazed me
that here was this man who was so
distinguished in his own right and had done
so much for the country, just the sort of man
that my father would have admired most
cause he did admire military people very
much and particularly, I think, men who
made their names in aviation. And people
would come and my dear husband would be
so courteous to them as the host and yet,
people were not interested in him and his life
at all and my father would have been very
embarrassed by this. I was embarrassed for
it, but my husband was such a big man that I
never once heard him complain about it nor
did I ever see him feel in any way put out
that this was happening. He was a very big
man.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : At the same time, maybe you were a
little put out, once or twice.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh, I would be on his behalf, yes.
People in this world get things topseyturvey.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : When you were a little girl, where did
you grow up? You were born in 1912, the
only daughter of the second marriage,
correct?

'''Lady Bromet''' : In December. Yes, I was born in
December. Another one was born, but I
think she didn't survive.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : What part of London or outside of
London did you grow up in as a little girl?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh, I grew up in Croborough in Sussex
which was my father and mother . . . When
my father and mother were married, he
bought this house at Croborough and built
on to it and we lived there for the whole of
our lives, up to my mother's death and at
that time, it was taken over by the Canadian
Army during the war and then, after that,
my bother Dennis owned it and it was sold.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I know you're asked this many times
but yet, growing up, you must have become
gradually aware that there was a very
famous man that you happened to call Papa
living in that house. Tell me again. What did
you call him?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Pop. But I don't think we called him
Pop until we went to the States on one of
the lecture tours. Then we always did. My
father loved slang and he liked American
slang very much and encouraged us to learn
as much American slang as we could while
we were out in America, and though he
didn't use much slang himself, he was really
rather intrigued that we should learn the
slang. My brothers both spoke impeccable
English. The most beautiful English. But I'm
afraid I did pick up this leaning toward slang
and then course being in the RAF where
there was a lot of RAF slang during the war,
I found this very lively and got used to using
these words which my father would have
approved of thoroughly.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I understand that when he would be
writing, that he would sometimes read his
works to you. Do you have recollections of
that?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh yes, very very clear recollections,
because from the time I was a schoolgirl, he
used to bring his whatever he was writing
down at lunch time. When we'd finished
lunch... When he'd finished lunch, rather
quickly, he'd go up and collect his
manuscript that he'd been writing on during
the morning and come down and read it to us
and then he'd always say, "Now if there's
anything you don't like in this, anything you
object to, say. Tell me." And we'd listen to
this and one got to learn one's father's own
feeling about these characters. I mean he
always had an affection for Holmes. No
doubt about it. And it amused him intensely
to write in little Holmesian jokes, rather dry
humor, and Holmes pulling Watson's leg, and
he used to laugh about Holmes' conceit wellearned,
I mean it was quite justified but he
loved to write in a little bit about Holmes
and then he'd chuckle away at that. He
chuckled a lot over the Holmes stories.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : He never confided in you, at times,
some of his impatience though with the
characters? We do know there was that
occasionally.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh yes, but that wasn't exactly just
impatience. That we all knew that he would
prefer to be writing a historical novel or
doing some other writing and that is a fact,
and then he did resent the fact that Holmes
took up so much of his time and that so
many people concentrated on Holmes and
didn't talk about Brigadier Girard and
Professor Challenger, who in his opinion
were just as great characters, and we all as a
family loved them just as much as Holmes.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I was going to ask you as a young
reader, were you also reading these or were
you secretly reading other works by other
authors on your own?

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, I was reading Holmes stories under
the bedclothes as most children did, and I
read those and then I read my father's other
works of course, Brigadier Girard and Lost
World and his short stories - rather macabre
short stories - and that sort of thing. Of
course, I read masses of their books as well
cause I was a great reader and at that time
could read very fast so I just didn't
concentrate on Conan Doyle.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I understand that he took you to a stage performance of "The Speckled Band"?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes he did. He took all of us to that in
1921. It was terribly exciting and he was
very pleased with it. I thought you know the
story that when they first put it on, they
used a real snake and there were so many
complaints that they were obviously using a
false snake, they had to withdraw the real
snake and use a false snake. Too silly for
words.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I wonder if you could give us a portrait
of what he looked like and especially what
he sounded like when he would come down
the stairs and read to you these stories.
What remains in your mind and in your ears
as you think back to that?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Well, as I start to think back to that, I
can hear very heavy footsteps, slow heavy
footsteps descending the stairs and then this
large, wonderfully genial figure coming in to
the dining room. We were all there ready and
then it would be as if the sunshine had come
into the room. He was such a personality
and everything to the light then and
everything came so interesting. His talk came
so interesting. He wasn't particularly
interested in food. He had very, very simple
tastes. Apple dumpling was his favorite
pudding and roast beef and Yorkshire
pudding he'd love or steak and kidney
pudding. Those sort of things. He wasn't
interested very much in that and not very
interested in drinking much either but . . .

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : The voice itself?

'''Lady Bromet''' : The conversation would stop. Deep
voice, when one hears it on these records
nowadays and tapes nowadays, it sounds so
much squeakier than it was because I think
of faulty technicalities in those days and
another thing too was that one of them was
taken in one of the two last years of his life.
At which time, his teeth, he had a great
theory. Everyone should have their teeth out
very young and then nobody would have a
toothache. And he'd had all his out very
young. By the time he was in his last sixties,
these weren't fitting quite properly and this
blurred his voice a little bit. It wasn't quite
the same as it used to be and this comes over
in the records but he was a much more fullchested
speaker than you can hear on the
records.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : And I understand that you own dog
became something of a movie star?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh yes, Paddy. And he appeared in
some of the still photographs, too, because
when I was away, my father looked after
him for me. This was a special thing and he
attached himself to my father and they were
very fond of one another and Paddy, who
was an Irish terrier, used to go round with
him so, in every photograph, he would be with my father.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now, the last years with your father.
What memories do remain with you now of
maybe the last time you had moments alone
with him?

'''Lady Bromet''' : His thought for other people. He was so
upset. He sat in the room waiting with
oxygen for his heart and so on and my
brothers went off to get the oxygen and he
said, it has been reported that he said it to
somebody else but it wasn't true, he said to
me, "Get a book and read. It's so boring for
you, and I'm so sorry for you there. This
must all be so boring for you." Of course he
loved my mother very deeply indeed and he
was sweet to her and he was just wonderful
to all of us until he was unconscious and
died.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now, you were about how old at that point?

'''Lady Bromet''' : I was seventeen.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Very impressionable age.

'''Lady Bromet''' : It was a terrible blow to me because I
was particularly close to my father. I loved
my mother dearly, but I think that it's fairly
usual for daughters and fathers to be closer
and mothers and sons and it certainly
happened with me and he'd given me so
much companionship when I was on my
holidays, we used to spend every evening
together, we used to sit round the early radio
sets trying to get some message or other
from the BBC and we sat and read together
and I was allowed to go in his study and read
while he was working.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : So he did not mind people around him while he wrote?

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, he didn't. He wouldn't have liked
people around him who talked to him. I can't
remember other people going around him but
there was a special chair that I was allowed
to go and sit in. And I didn't talk at all. I just
sat there and got on with my own business.
And also, I looked after his library. I dusted
all his books for him, and I could do that
while he was working.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Did he ever work at a typewriter, or was it strictly longhand?

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, always longhand, such very neat longhand. Have you seen any?

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : No. Where are the manuscripts? What do you have?

'''Lady Bromet''' : I could probably show you some replicas here in one or two books which will show you them, but I have manuscripts, a lot, but they're in the bank.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Where they should be.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : However, behind us, to my right is a library. Now you say many of these are his books?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes, a great number of these are his and
a lot of them have inscriptions to him from
people like H.G. Wells and Barrie and so on,
a lot of them and then another lot are marked
by him. He's marked the interesting
paragraphs and one or two, I think, are
prizes for him when he was at Stoneyhurst
College. We had the three of us, my two
brothers and myself, divided his library up
between us and I was given first choice and
first one and then a brother and then another
brother and then me again and that sort
which means that I was able to get the books
that I wanted myself. One of my brothers
sold his section to one of the American
universities. I think it's the University of
Texas, but I may be wrong.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now directly across from you on the
wall is a very famous image of your father. I
feel like I've seen this many times before.
What can you tell me about it?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Well the awful thing is that my memory
is so bad that I've forgotten the artist's name.
I think it's Gates, but I would have to verify
that. The artist went down and saw my
father quite a lot down in the Psyche
Bookshop. My father had this bookshop
which he ran as a hobby in Victoria Street in
London and Gates then took a lot of
sketches from it and then a photograph and
then he painted from that and at one stage I
had two, this one and one far less formal
one, a smaller one, far less formal, which I
really wanted to keep because it was more
my father as I knew him. I mean, that's when
he's lecturing and...

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : And in his right hand are glasses. Now
tell me about the glasses. Did he not wear
them very often?

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, but at that stage of his life for
reading, but not until then and he'd just but it
on in case he had to read some notes, I
suppose.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now that famous formidable mustache.
As a little girl you must have been fascinated
by this as any child would be, I would think.

'''Lady Bromet''' : You see I can't remember the one when
it was black and waxed, I was too young for
that, but this one I didn't mind in the least.
There were a lot of men with mustaches in
those days. you see, it wasn't just him. My
uncle had a mustache. Bother uncles had a
mustache. There wasn't anything really odd
about it.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now among all the children, is it safe to
say that it is Adrian who pursued the most
literary bent?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes, it would be. He wrote, at least he
wrote one pastiche of Sherlock Holmes
stories and he wrote two about his own
adventures fishing, deep-sea fishing. Dennis,
on the other hand, wrote many, many
articles. He was a good journalist and he
wrote many articles for the Sunday papers
on the subject of spiritualism.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now spiritualism must have been
something that was discussed a lot.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes, it was.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Is that something that he ever
communicated to you especially or was it
just an interest that you would believe in or
not believe in, as you chose, or was he
emphatic about...

'''Lady Bromet''' : He spoke to all of us at different times.
He talked to me about spiritualism when I
was about six. You mustn't worry about
death, and what death is, and this is not the
end of everything. There is another life
afterwards.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : And is it interesting, even for those who
don't believe that, in his books, that indeed
was true?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : When did you become a Dame
Commander? For those of us who are not
aware of what a Dame Commander is, or
what she does...

'''Lady Bromet''' : Well, I was just lucky enough to be the
Air Force and to have risen to be the
Director of the WRAF because, not now,
but until fairly recently, the directors of the
Women's Royal Air Force were appointed
dames either on retirement or on
appointment. I was very lucky cause I got it
shortly after my appointment.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now, when people refer to you, or when you refer to yourself to people, is the term Dame Commander more proper or Lady Bromet?

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, it isn't Dame Commander. If I'm using the name Conan Doyle, it's Dame Jean Conan Doyle, but the full title is Air Commandant Dame Jean Conan Doyle which shows people, people wonder why I should be a dame. Was it something to do  with Sherlock Holmes? Well, no it wasn't. It was an Air Commandant. I was a military dame. My medal is marked military one, you see, and so it's helpful, I think, sometimes, to make it quite clear that I'm not an academic. I'm not a politician, but I am a service woman and that's the Dame.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I think it's important that we note that in 1980 something happened regarding the Sherlock Holmes stories. I'll let you describe what happened and what the results have been because we've sure been seeing the name Sherlock Holmes around a lot lately, but your father's name is not attached to it.

'''Lady Bromet''' : No, that's very bad. Well, in 1980 the works came into public domain in this country and anybody could write whatever they liked, put on any sort of show or anything in this country and write pastiches using the characters. This doesn't apply in America, I'm glad to say, where, thank goodness, your laws have been changed fairly recently and quite a number of my father's works are still in copyright and then copyright to me. Over here there have been several pastiches written, more and more recently, I'm afraid to say, and there have been, a lot of films have been made but we, by having a right, a copyright on the film, on my father's works in America, I hope to influence the standard of work here in England because most people want to publish the work in America afterwards, after it's been published in England, or they want to have it produced on the American stage or screen and I won't give permission for that to be done unless the characters are shown in character and in period and are very well written. For a time I did allow pastiches to be published on these terms, but always against my inner judgment and I don't allow it any longer. I allow a certain amount of films and television and cinema if they follow the rules I've just told you about.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Let's take, as an example, "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes," now playing at the Wyndham Theatre in the West End. When this project came up, were you consulted at first, and if you would follow it from there?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Yes, I was. I was consulted very early on in that I was asked to a private view on a Sunday. I was sent the script. I heard it on a tape, and I kept in very close touch with the author, Jeremy Paul, and with the star, Jeremy Brett, and I could see nothing objectionable in it at all. I thought it was very elegantly written, fascinating in its way, something that would have amused my father greatly. He didn't much mind what liberties were taken on the stage, within reason, providing they were in good hands, the hand being William Gillette. I don't think he would have been so happy with some other actor-producers, but certainly with "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes," it's been beautifully handled by people who obviously love Holmes and Watson and the acting is splendid. Jeremy Brett's been appearing as Holmes in films for the television for a long time now, but his performance has changed beyond measure. I didn't really like him in the early series. He was far too arrogant, too mannered, too highly strung altogether, whereas Holmes was a very cool character, and it has been wonderful to see the change in him, and the last series, instead of being a rather unpleasant man, he became an endearing man in spite of his conceit, in spite of this, that and the other. He's somebody who you really care about, and I think it's an absolutely great performance... He holds you.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I wish I could have been present in his dressing room when you went back to see him.

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh, it was a lovely party. very nice to see him again. And such a privilege to meet Watson. Edward Hardwicke is a splendid Watson, just the sort of Watson my father would have envisaged unlike Nigel Bruce who really was the most appalling Watson so far, I believe he was a very nice man, but Watson was never the old bungler like that. I mean, Holmes would never have shared digs with a fool.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Now by contrast to all of this, has there been a project come your way that you've had to say no?

'''Lady Bromet''' : John Lellenberg, who acts as my agent, has certainly had to say no on my behalf to many projects. Yes, there have been. In this country, a book has come out recently which I think was highly objectionable, but of course, I can't do anything about it in this country, and that is a book produced by some homosexuals in society. I think they've got some rather inappropriate name, and they, I think they're absolutely disgraceful to suggest that there was a homosexual relationship between Holmes and Watson. There was never any such thing.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : So, then in general terms, you are very aware then of a role you must maintain in the 1980's to keep the Holmes character with some kind of integrity. How would you paraphrase that: how would you describe that role?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Well, I am a protector of Sherlock Holmes' reputation, and therefore, my father's literary reputation. It's a funny thing cause I'm not a Sherlockian. Holmes is not necessarily my favorite character. I would fight just as strongly, if not more strongly, for Brigadier Girard and Professor Challenger, but I have an affection for him. Like my father, I find him to be a terrible nuisance. He takes up far too much of my time. I can well understand my father wanting to push him over Reichenbach Fall. I quite feel that way myself at times. But what I can't be having, I've grown up with an affection for this character who I feel I know so well, and I hate to see other people putting him in their books which are [NOT!] nearly so well-written and really denigrating

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : And, besides, how could you come back to your apartment and look at that image of your father on the wall without, with as direct gaze had you not been so careful?

'''Lady Bromet''' : Oh, you're quite right. I couldn't. It's a pity that people will try and write these pastiches cause I always feel that a writer who's worth anything should create their own characters. What an admission that you must use another man's characters in order to get a book published and really, and to allow these very special characters to be handled by writers who can't produce their own characters. What a fate!

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : Dame Jean Conan Doyle, I want to thank you so much for your time and your observations on keeping Holmes alive and well in the 1980's. It's been a pleasure seeing you and sharing the library and the images of your father and your late husband and on behalf of Sherlockians everywhere, thank you so much.

'''Lady Bromet''' : I've enjoyed meeting you enormously. As you know, I was rather hesitant about seeing you today because I was so busy going off on holiday, but it's been a very great pleasure to meet you, and you couldn't have made it easier for me to have this interview.

'''John C. Tibbetts''' : I appreciate that. Broadcasting from London, the apartment of Jean Conan Doyle, this is John Tibbetts. I'll talk to you next time.











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* Acknowledgments: Jon Lellenberg, Richard Pooley, John C. Tibbets.
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* [[Family|Back to Conan Doyle's Family]]
* [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]]