Partage des connaissances

Nom légal: Mühlenkamp, Mamie (birth name)
Autres noms: Gilmour, Patience (pseudonym)
Date de naissance: 1901-07-22
Date de décès: 1985-11-12
Sexe: female
Nationalité: UK
Pays (pour la carte): UK
Lieu de naissance: Chelsea, London, England, UK
Études: Croydon High School
Professions: novelist
children's writer
historian
Girl Guide story author
guider
Organisations: Girl Guides
Courte biographie: Born in 1901 in Chelsea, London, as Mamie Mühlenkamp, Catherine Mary Christian was the daughter of businessman Christian John Mühlenkamp, and his wife, Catherine Harriett Ellett. The family was of German extraction, although they had been settled in England for some time before Mamie’s birth. They changed their name some time during the First World War, in order to avoid being identified as German. Mamie was educated at Croyden High School, and became involved, some time in the 1920s, in the Girl Guide Movement. She edited The Guide - the journal of the movement - from 1939-1945. Her friend and flatmate, Margaret (‘Peg’) Tennyson, edited The Guider during that same period, and published guide novels under the pseudonym "Carol Forrest" (sometimes erroneously attributed to Christian). After the war, Christian and Tennyson moved to Devon, where Christian was, for a time, Curator of the Salcombe National Trust Museum. The two were involved in the Guide International Service, and helped the former Polish Chief Guide run a home for war orphans. Christian died in 1985.

Christian's life-long interest in Guiding is apparent in her many children's books, which often feature Guides. In addition to her children's stories, she also wrote historical fiction and Arthurian fantasy for adults, and published four "Ranger" books under the pseudonym Patience Gilmour.

Membres

Critiques

The Pendragon par Catherine Christian

Arthur as Celtic king, Bediver his Roman cousin

Signalé

ritaer | 2 autres critiques | Jun 6, 2021 |

Three's a Company: A Story for Lone Guides par Patience Gilmour

When fifteen-year-old Laurence Trevelyan, on holiday in St. Gabrielle, France, is left abandoned and penniless by her actress step-mother, the British girl is at first at a loss as to what to do. A Lone Guide - a girl guide who cannot, for reasons other than health, join a regular guide troop, and must therefore be a distance member of the movement - Laurie soon finds herself making friends, and experiencing a season abroad that will change her life. Fellow Lone Guide Elspeth Murray, a young woman working locally as a secretary and chauffeuse, is her first friend, but the bulk of the story concerns Laurie's growing relationship with two other girls. Ann Malory, a Post Guide - an "invalid or crippled" guide who also cannot belong to a troop - is confined to bed with a back injury, while Dorothy Benson, a Ranger - an older Guide in her late teens and/or early twenties - is working in St. Gabrielle as a maid, in order to support her own invalid sister. Despite differences of background and circumstance, the three girls are able to form a strong bond, thanks to the guiding ethos, and see each other through much drama, from Laurie being kicked out of her hotel, through an exciting and dangerous car race. All ends happily, as Elspeth Murray's fiance is revealed to be Laurie's true guardian, while Ann's seemingly incurable injury is cured, but the real pleasure is getting to that conclusion, and watching the girls form their own Guide "company" of three....

Published in 1935, Three's a Company: A Story for Lone Guides was the first of the four-book Wild Swans series featuring these characters and their adventures, first as Girl Guides and then as Rangers. The series was written by school story author Catherine Christian and published under the pseudonym 'Patience Gilmour,' which seems to have only been used for these books. Although it is the first in the series, I read it after the subsequent Seven Wild Swans: A Story for Rangers, which I found in a used bookstore, and which I picked up, unaware that it was part of a larger series. Like that second book, I found this story engaging, and appreciated the way in which Guiding served as an equalizing factor, in the social interaction of the three main characters. So often, in vintage British girls' fare, social class is all important, and characters from working and lower middle-class backgrounds serve only as backdrop and/or servants for the 'real' upper class characters. Not so here, where Dorothy Benson is as fully-realized a figure as Laurie or Ann. I really appreciated that aspect of the story, and the way in which the equalizing and unifying aspects of the Guiding movement - something Catherine Christian was passionately involved in, in her real life - was depicted in the tale. Recommended to anyone who enjoys vintage British girls' fare, or Girl Guide stories.… (plus d'informations)

Signalé

AbigailAdams26 | Apr 7, 2020 |

Seven Wild Swans: A Story for Rangers par Patience Gilmour

Laurie Trevelyan, Ann Malory and Dorothy Benson, three English girls who met in the south of France in Gilmour's Three's a Company, and became fast friends, return in this second adventure, which is once again centered around girl guiding. Now based in and around London, young authoress Ann, medical student Laurie, and child-minder Dorothy have remained friends, and are still committed to the ideals of guiding. Specifically, they are now all Rangers - an upper level of guiding for young women in the late teens and early twenties - and with Ann's prompting, decide to form a very special company, one in which girls engaged in all sorts of activities, and from all walks of life, can compare notes and share strength. The first addition to their company comes when the girls help out at St. Elizabeth's orphanage, and befriend the maid and child-minder, Miggs, a fresh-faced country girl who is also a Guide. Soon hairdresser in training Clare Denis, with an eye for making people beautiful; pilot and airplane mechanic Sally McLane, who enjoys nature photography as well; and scholar Elizabeth Craven, whose prickly outer shell and seeming snobbery hide a lonely and insecure young woman, all join the company. Many adventures follows, as the girls tackle everything from taking an inner-city guiding company in hand, to restoring a ruined country chapel, together with a group of Rovers...

Found at a used book sale a number of years ago, Seven Wild Swans is a book about which I knew very little, going in. Of course, the sub-title gives an idea that the story is connected to Guiding/the Rangers, but I picked it up largely because it was older - I tend to be quite interested in vintage children's fiction - and because the name Patience Gilmour seemed vaguely familiar to me. As it turns out, Gilmour is a pseudonym used by girls' school-story author Catherine Christian, so undoubtedly I read about her in Sue Sims and Hilary Clare's encyclopedia of that genre. There is no mention anywhere in the book of there being a previous adventure featuring these characters, but the opening passage does leave the impression that they had a previous adventure, so I was not surprised to discover that this was but one of a number of stories (four altogether) devoted to the eponymous 'wild swans.' I have since tracked down the first, and hope eventually to locate the latter two. As for the story here, I found it very engaging, and took all the characters to heart. I was particularly struck by the absence of the usual classism to be found in British books of this date. Usually, if there are working class characters, other than the ubiquitous maids or gardeners, they are treated with a certain condescension in the narrative, and by the other characters, and they are rarely allowed to be heroines in their own right. Here there is a mix of girls, from all classes - many of them working or lower middle-class - and there is no sense that they are any less intelligent or true than their middle and upper-class peers. I found that immensely refreshing, and wonder if it can be put down to the (potentially) equalizing influence of Guiding, and which all members of a company are considered sisters? Whatever the case may be, it made a welcome change! Recommended to anyone who enjoys vintage girls' fare, or is interested in stories about Guiding for girls.… (plus d'informations)

Signalé

AbigailAdams26 | Sep 14, 2015 |

The Sword and the Flame par Catherine Christian

Catherine Christian blends a wonderful mix of Myth, Fact and Fiction to create a novel that is a wonderful read. Being a fan of both Arthurian Legend and Roman History, I could easily see in my minds eye the places & people living within the pages.

A must read for any fan of King Arthur and his Valiant companions.

Signalé

jrhughes | 2 autres critiques | Mar 20, 2010 |

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