I'm trying to work out where Kathie's home is, but to no avail. She tells folk when she first arrives at the school that her home is in the Cotswolds, but if you turn to the beginning of New Mistress, the text says:

Kathie sat in the train that was taking her from the station of Eton and Slough to Paddington. Clinton, where her home was, was on a little branch line and she and Mrs Grayson had come by the business train...

No explanation is given as to where Clinton is, but Slough and Eton are nowhere near the Cotswolds - unless my geographic knowledge is even worse than I thought - and if Clinton was on a little branch line to Eton/Slough, then it must be near those places. Anyone able to tell me what is the nearest Cotswold town to Slough?

We learn that her uncle is called Frank, but is there ever, anywhere, a reference to her aunt's name? She's referred to in the text only as Mrs Grayson.

Thank you in advance...

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"It takes a long time to live what you learn." May Sarton

I wonder if EBD mixed up the Cotswolds and the Chilterns?

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to be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e.e.cummings
http://stitchwords.blogspot.co.uk

There isn't a station caled Eton and Slough, there's Windsor and Eton Riverside and Windsor and Eton Central. To get to Windsor and Eton Central you have to change at Slough. Maybe that's what she was thnking of, There's a place caled Aston Clinton about 25 miles from Slough - it may have had a railway link to Slough once but not now. Slough is on the line to Paddington.
Nowhere near Cotswolds, she might indeed be thnking of Chilterns!

She does make it sound very real, don't think using real placenames is a good idea unless yiou are using them correctly! Better to change them slightly like Medbury (Ledbury) and Armiford (Hereford) then it doesn't matter if they are not quite right!

Wonderful! Thanks very, very much, both of you! Shows how poor my geography of England is! I think I might just have them move....

Now if only her aunt's name appeared somewhere.

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"It takes a long time to live what you learn." May Sarton

I thought I'd seen somewhere that she had been called after the aunt? But maybe that's in a drabble or a fill-in??

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to be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e.e.cummings
http://stitchwords.blogspot.co.uk

She was named after her mum, who was also Kathleen. I don't think the aunt's name is mentioned. I shall check in the encyclopaedia ... which just says "Uncle Frank and Auntie".

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Yes, I knew she was named after her mum, and like Alison I checked in the encyclopaedia about her aunt's name. But she can't remain nameless, not in the situation I'm envisaging, so will have to produce something. Her husband can hardly refer to her as auntie, when speaking to another adult!

Thanks all!

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"It takes a long time to live what you learn." May Sarton

That means you have your choice of names, so you can just choose something you like and no-one will be able to argue with you .

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I'll be able to argue with myself, though, Alison, because once I've chosen a name, and it's set in stone, I'll regret choosing that particular one!

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"It takes a long time to live what you learn." May Sarton

Think her mother and aunt were twins?? If so, maybe a name that fits well with Kathleen, though I don't have a suggestionj.

Almost certainly not anything that EBD had already used for anyone major, or she'd have had Kathie saying that was her aunt's name ... so not Bridget, probably not Josephine or Margaret - might have been Mary as that was in such common use at the time it probably wouldn't be remarked on, but more likely a second name - unlikely to be Helena or Constance either!

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to be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e.e.cummings
http://stitchwords.blogspot.co.uk

I always wondered if her aunt, and therefore also her mother, were Irish, with a name like Kathleen. Never thought of them being twins, though, ivohenry.

Thanks for getting so involved in choosing names for me, abbeybufo. :winks:

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"It takes a long time to live what you learn." May Sarton

But names like Kathleen, Nora and Eileen were really popular in England in the late 19th and early 20th century, yet not always followed through in other siblings: my own mother (born 1919) was Nora Eileen (no sisters), and her mother (born 1896) was also Nora (sisters Anne, Florence, Lily, Miriam, Ellen). We don't have any Irish ancestry at all, though the name does belong to the Scottish bit of the family. In my father's family (plain English) one of my younger aunts was Kathleen (b 1919), but her sisters were Ada, Edna, Gladys, Ellen, Eva and Vera...

I really think you can please yourself, Mary - perhaps check if the name that comes to you is in Charlotte Mary Yonge's History of Christian Names here as EMBD seems to have been so fond of it.

Thanks, Noreen. I've chosen so many names for my own characters that I'm wondering why this particular name bothers me. It's odd because I now see that most of the names I've chosen are from folk known to me in my school years in the fifties and early sixties, the latter being when ND is set, so another one should be easy, no?!?

And to think all this started because I couldn't work out where she lived, nor if her aunt had a name...

Many thanks to all for getting involved.

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"It takes a long time to live what you learn." May Sarton

In my drabble, she's from Winchcombe (just outside Cheltenham) and just in the Cotswolds - and would be on a branch line to the main Bristol-Paddington line.

And her aunt's called Edith (I decided)

Is the relationship between Kathleen and Mrs Grayson? I mean, are they supposed to be sisters?

I didn't think it was clear from the books...... that could be annoying (and will involve re-writing). I'd decided Frank and Kathleen were brother and sister.

Train from Cheltenham - Paddington would either be direct (several a day) , or change at Swindon. However, depending when your drabble is set, there was a local railway line with a station at Winchcombe, which closed in 1960.

I think it was Jacynth whose mum and auntie were twins. It's not specified with Kathie. Mrs Grayson refers to Mrs Ferrars as "little Kitten" or something like that, and I took that to mean that Kathie's mum was her younger sister, but I suppose there's no reason she couldn't have been her sister-in-law and that she was using her husband's affectionate nickname for his younger sister - especially if there was a big age gap and Mrs F had only been young when Mr and Mrs G got together. It definitely doesn't say specifically, so I'd just use whichever family relationship works, for either of you .

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Yes, think I must have been thnking of Jacynth's mother and aunt being twins