No Place like Holmes

      I've had a day doing other things again. But to maintain the posts, here's a couple of other bits. One of my little pictures is a view from the Sherlock Holmes museum. I got it after I'd started decorating the study and was surprised how similar both look. I had not seen this room before, but I suppose on a subconscious level I've soaked something up from watching the various versions of the Holmes stories on TV and film, and the set-dressers working on these would probably have seen the room in the museum.

The definitive Holmes, for my generation at least, was the magnificent Jeremy Brett. Mr Brett filmed 41 episodes for the four television series between 1984 and 1994. I have copies of them all on DVD, and watch them repeatedly. They were deliberately made to be as faithful to the original stories as possible, but Mr Brett's attention to detail made it hard for him to leave Holmes behind at the end of a day's filming, and his own health suffered as a consequence. I got these autographs of Mr Brett and Mr Edward Hardwicke, (who played Watson, succeeding David Burke in 1986), from someone who worked on the production at Granada Studios, Manchester.

Here is a scan of an original advertisement for the Holmes stories that came in the back of an old book - but I can't remember which. It came loose and I put it safely to one side until I framed it. It would be nice to know how much the three volume set selling for 10s 6d then (that's 52 1/2 p in decimal money), brings today - or the singles at 3s 6d (17 1/2 p) for that matter.