Episode 50 Fullcircle by John Buchan

John Buchan: John Buchan, officially 1st Baron Tweedsmuir was born in 1875 in Perth, Scotland and died in 1940 aged only 64 in Montreal, Canada. He was Governor General of Canada until he died in office. His father was a minister of the Church of Scotland. Many of our ghost story writers are children of clergymen. He studied Classics at the University of Glasgow and then moved to Oxford University. After that he went to South Africa where he was private secretary to the High Commissioner of South Africa. Like Kipling, who we read last week, Buchan was a conservative son of the British Empire. He was a bit of a softie for a conservative though because later when MP for Peebles just south of Edinburgh, he supported votes for women, national health insurance for the poor and curtailing the power of the House of Lords.Though a Scot, he was not a Scottish Nationalist, and in common with many Scots of his class and time, he though Scotland was best off within the British Empire.When he returned from South Africa, he was called to the English Bar as a barrister (an advocate in Scotland). He was also editor of the still existing conservative magazine: The Spectator.In 1916, Buchan went to the Western Front, attached to the Intelligence Corps. Just before this he had just published his famous spy story The 39 Steps. In 1935, Buchan went as Governor General to Canada. He had always liked Canada, written about it as a journalist and fought alongside Canadian troops in the First World War. He encouraged a distinct Canadian identity and nationality. He hosted King George VI on the king's tour of Canada. He suffered a stroke at Rideau Hall and then a head injury as he fell. He was treated by the famous neurologist Wilder Penfield. I wonder at Buchan's favouring the rather gloomy, death-fearing folk he contrasts with the happy builder of Fullcircle with his Catholic/Pagan sensibilities. Technical DifficultiesI had very strange technical difficulties in recording this story. The recording kept skipping, parts disappeared, parts recorded on the same track. Of course, it could be the new version of Reaper, or it could be that the story is haunted!There are some weird clicks and bumps that I've tried to get rid of, but I think some remain.FullcircleAgain, the house is the main character in this story, the house of the ghost behind it: Lord Carteron.The first clue that he haunts the house is in the history where Leithen tells our narrator Peckwether that Lord Carteron's soul is in the house Fullcircle. Leithan talks about his own house Borrowby and how the Ancient England knew death. He talks of the restoration of the monarchy and the Merry Monarch Charles II after the English Civil War and how the Restoration brought paganism to England and those pagan types were able to live in a bland happiness. That's Leithen's big complaint against Full Circle and the easy, lazy happiness it produces in the people who live there and the ghost of Lord Carteron who moulds them in his easy going image. Personally, I'm quite keen on happiness bland or otherwise, but Buchan seems to look down his nose at it. The man who built Fullcircle, Leithen says, knew have to live: 'The trouble was, they didn't know how to die.'. He accuses them in their paganess to trying magic and never becoming true Catholics, just going to Catholicism because of its ritual. Leithan is a bit miserable. He tells Giffen that the paradaisical countryside in June makes him sad. Giffen now converted from socialism to paganism can't understand him! Leithen says the Cotswold countryside in June is too perfect a thing for fallen humanity. Giffen thinks him morSupport the show

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