The Onion Vendor's Secret by Marcia Wilson

Author:Marcia Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sherlock holmes, mystery, short story, Canonical, pastiche, Onion Johnnies, Stapleton, onion chapelets, Sir Henry Baskerville, burglaries, smuggling, Vandeleur Moth, entomology, forgeries, Folkestone, Bretons, Brittany, Roscoff, onion
ISBN: 9781787057265
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2021-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

2 “There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by--” Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Chapman & Hall 186 Strand. 1843. Online novel, Project Gutenberg. Release Date: August 11, 2004 [EBook #46] Last Updated: March 4, 2018 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm

At the Back of the Book

Can you slice a smaller story out of a much-larger one? That’s what I wanted to know. It is the reverse of my usual work—taking small stories and connecting them together into a larger, single story. I normally write the way I put a necklace together: each story is a bead. Each bead is related to the others.

Inspector Lestrade lets us know in the first Adventure (STUD) that he worked in the CID (Criminal Investigations Department). If we use a calculator, he was just barely old enough for the job, and the job was a tough one that demanded a lot out of its men. To do the work was to avoid notice. I’m wondering is a large book on the topic is on the verge of coming out because some of the old online archives of photos are not as accessible as they used to be. Vividly, though, I remember some before-and-after photographs of CID officers dressed up for undercover work and then the same group of men polished up in their professional best. The disguises were impressive to say the least. I can see Mr. Lestrade in the physicality of such a task. Mr. Gregson’s persona is more suited to using his brains and avoiding that sort of work. The two really make an interesting contrast to each other, and I can’t imagine Sherlock Holmes sharing his beloved London without these two. I may be crafting a lopsided image of these men in my portrayals, but I am doing my best and if it goes against the vision of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I can only apologize. I am doing my best.

The Onion Johnny is dying out, which is a pity but an inevitable one considering how so few things stay the same. It is a hard life, demanding and full of long hours away from home in foreign countries. Their memory may be ultimately part of the ‘British image’ and that is not a bad thing. They first showed up somewhere around the 1830’s-1840’s. With their striped shirts, dark trousers and jackets and cloth caps, they shared the streets with heavy poles of onions, or wobbled about on bicycles weighed to the breaking point with their wares. Some liked the UK so much they retired there. Others kept their ties between England and France. The nation of shopkeepers saluted the enterprise of these men (and very rarely, women).

Onion Johnnies came to England because it was initially a better transport investment to hop the Channel and sell their wares rather than travel in the opposite direction. They showed up for around half the year and went back to Brittany for the other six.

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