Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

If you are not an extremist with a qualification in the humanities (ie know a lot about literature and history) you may find this week's puzzle a bit of a slog . The Eastender is not and had to rely on researching the clues and data crunching, though reading about some of the people uncovered has prompted him to consider learning a bit more about them and their works. Near as I can figure it, the most likely answers seem to me to be:

Q1. Max Faulkner

Q2. Duncton Hill


(NB for question one, there were two golfers who came sixth in the 1949 open. Max Faulkner and Arthur lees. I couldn't find a reference that shows Arthur Lees lived in Pulborough but did find one for Max Faulkner living there (obit in the Bexhill observer). Lees seems to be associated with Sunningdale club in Berkshire.

(NB For question 2, there are two places in close proximity called Duncton hill, one is a viewpoint and one is an actual hill, which one of my maps claims is 255 meters or 836 feet and while it is difficult to work out the height using only the contours, there are photographs of a plaque on a plinth at the viewpoint, which show it to be 121 meters or 398 feet above sea level (I don't know if Hilaire Belloc wrote the poem Duncton hill about the hill or the viewpoint).

The initial clues lead us to Duncton hill viewpoint in a region known as 'The South Downs National Park' (according to some references, this came into being c2011). There were several liberal MP's born in 1870 but the one who most fits the clues given, is Hilaire Belloc, he seems to have been something of a polymath; a poet, author, journalist, adventurer, hiker and friends with H.G.Wells and George Bernard Shaw. He would be regarded as controversial by some elements of the idiocracy that we have created to run things today. Belloc according to some sources, loved Sussex and wrote a poem about Duncton hill, it has a line in it as follows:

The passer-by shall hear me still,

  A boy that sings on Duncton Hill.

which fits nicely with the clue at the end of the puzzle, he also wrote poems about a hippopotamus and a girl that slams doors.

I shoot the Hippopotamus
with bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
his hide is sure to flatten 'em.

Travelling twenty five miles west from Duncton hill viewpoint takes us to a place called Bishop's Waltham, where a ruined abbey lies (Bishop's palace). Some references claim this was started by a guy called William Wykeham (born c 1324) and that he also founded Winchester college. The palace was allegedly destroyed by Oliver Cromwell (presumably because he did not want the opposition using it like the Alamo to hole up in, or maybe just out of badness).

Tracking east from Bishop's palace, brings us into proximity with a house called Uppark. I found some references which say that the mother of H.G.Wells, was the housekeeper and that Wells himself lived there for a time. Uppark, according to some reports, was torched by a roofer (probably one of Cromwell's descendants) c1989 but it has since been refurbished. I think that the house and its environs were used as a social model in an H.G.Wells novel (c1909) called 'Tono Bungay' (Tono Bungay being a patent medicine). The Eastender Himself favours Bulwer Lytton's 'Vril' over Wells's 'The Time Machine', for the reason that the Vril-ya would have sent any Morlocks who were stupid enough to venture into their caverns, packing, in short order. His occult work 'Zanoni' makes for very interesting reading too......

Wells was employed by a chemists shop in the town of Midhurst and also taught at the grammar school there for a time. Duncton hill viewpoint is around five miles south east of Midhurst. Four miles or so north/north east of Duncton hill viewpoint lies the town of Petworth, this has a 'Petworth House', a seven hundred acre deer park and was home for a time to an author called Joan Aiken (born c1924). Aiken wrote a book called 'Dido and Pa' which featured a Mrs Bloodvessel.

Five miles east/north east of the viewpoint (the plaque there claims that it is six miles, also shows as six on one of my maps), lies the town of Pulborough. Pulborough was once home to the joint sixth place 1949 open golf contestant, Max Faulkner (he tied with Arthur Lees) and the cricketer (urg, cricket)  who captained the England team in the first test match played in 1924, one Arthur Gilligan.