Continuation of email conversation with Kindly Californian Gentleman
- From: "Kent
Barker" To: Frank Hoffman
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 9:42:11
AM
Subject: Re: Letters of John Collier
That’s very kind. Thanks.
Yes, perhaps a teenager in Orange County was not my best thought.
Any chance of a willing Mexican - before the Trump Wall goes up?
I have good memories of your side of LA.
I spent a year in Pasadena (well Eagle Rock really) as a 20 year, old
hanging round the Occidental college girls and working nights cleaning out
cinemas (the nearest I ever got to working in Hollywood) before an entire
Mexican family agreed to do the janitor’s job for the same wage I was getting!
Best
Kent
----- Original Message -----
From: Frank Hoffman
To: "Kent Barker"
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 10:04:05
AM
Subject: Re: Letters of John Collier
Yes, that's about right. Ah, Pasadena .
. . haven't been there in some years now. We used to go every second Sunday in
the month to the Rose Bowl antiques show, and the Pasadena City College flea
market every first Sunday, but venturing out on the freeways nowadays is akin
to active physical combat, so we just hunker down in the house hoping not to be
hit by an earthquake or a mudslide. As for the Mexicans, the state finally got
them to quit spray painting Spanish curses on public buildings by holding
parents responsible and by the stores putting spray paint cans in locked
cabinets, the cans now being unlocked and purchasable (maybe not English?) only
by those over a certain age. My own first experience of the LA area (I'm from
Buffalo, NY, and Ohio) was a job making aircraft parts at Lockheed in Burbank.
Well, let us not waste time with memories. I am now really, really going to
look for the Collier book. I think I know where it is. P.S. We are applauding
the new PM every Sunday evening here when we can watch "prime minister's
questions."
Frank
----- Original Message -----
From: Frank Hoffman To: "Kent Barker"
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 12:35:48
PM
Subject: Re: Letters of John Collier
Well, Kent, we have consulted and the
wife is dead set against the project. She fears someone getting their hands on
it and producing a POD thing for sale cheap. That would mean nothing to me, if
I was not worried myself about possible damage to the book during the scanning
process. A hand scanner might do, but we don't have one of those. I might look
into that possibility. Have no idea if they're still made or what they cost. If
the possible wounds to the book were not an issue I would scan the whole thing
myself, for no charge, just to help someone trying to create something we all
will want to enjoy. In looking at the book I read a few letters and instantly
developed a hunger to keep on reading. It's hypnotic stuff seen through the
lens of 200-300 years. Either way, flat bed scanner or hand scanner, it would
be a lot of work, but I would gladly attempt it. I'll see if I can justify
buying a hand scanner, and in fact whether or not those are still available,
and get back to you with that idea. I think that method would be less dangerous
for the book.
Frank
On 22 Jan 2017,
at 22:05, Frank Hofmann wrote:
Hi Kent,
Guess what. The wife is getting me a
hand scanner for my birthday, which is the 31st of this month. This we can use
in what we do with books in any case. This gadget is supposed to arrive here on
Tuesday. So I suggest we try out some pages of Collier's letters to see how it
works and how fast it can go. I wouldn't ask for any recompense since there
would be no real outlay other than time. Howzat?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kent Barker" To: Frank Hoffman
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2017 3:33:54
AM
Subject: Re: Letters of John Collier
Wow, that’s amazingly kind.
Especially as it seems to be causing something of a marital rift!
I’d be particularly interested in any
introduction or biographical notes in volume 1. There are none in the
second volume.
By the way, how did you acquire the
letters, and have you had them long?
Have fun with your new toy, and happy
birthday for the 31st.
On 23 Jan Frank
Hofmann wrote:
No marital rift in the offing, I just
sweet-talk her out of her opinions. Also, she loves buying electronic gadgets.
Personally, I hate computers, so when I'm in here cursing a streak for
something this #@$&*#% machine has done to offend, she comes running from
the other end of the house to fix it. She has a 4-foot-high stack of gadgets in
the living room that do everything from spying on the pope to cooking frijoles,
and I don't begin to understand any of it. I'm very good at pumping rainwater
out of tubs and puddles, which is what I did all day yesterday as we received
4.28 inches of rain in two days.
I got the Collier set in 2012 and I'm
surprised I still have them. I knew that SOMEbody would be doing a book on Mr.
Collier and would kill to get these letters. I killed no one, but I had to buy
them from the local public library. Seems I was the only person who knew what
he was looking at.
So we'll see how this works. It may be
so time consuming that I'll start cursing at the computer and madame will have
to handcuff me.
First page after title page in
vol. 1 has a prefatory note: The extracts which I have made from the
correspondence of the Collier family do not, I suppose, comprise one half of
the matter contained in the original letters; and it is very possible that any
one who may take the trouble to read the originals may think that I have
omitted much that was worthy of transcription; as, on the other hand, readers
of my extracts may think that I have transcribed much that is of very little
interest. My object has been to select such passages as contained references to
current political and other events, or illustrated the manners of the time, or
elucidated the family history, or revealed individual character . . . and so on
for 13 more lines. Following that is a "biographical note" of roughly
3 1/2 pages. Then the letters start, and within a couple of pages there is a
B&W photo of a building, to wit: Mr. Collier's house in the High Street,
Hastings (now called 'Old Hastings House').
I will of course scan the prefatory note
and the biographical note.
I just finished reading a biography of
Lady Blessington, a remarkable woman. Of course, she had nothing to do with the
Colliers.
Anway,
the gadget is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and then, after much preliminary and
secondary, more refined, swearing, madame will have taught me how to use
it and we will begin.
From: "Kent Barker" To: Frank Hoffman
Sent: Thursday, February 2,
2017 5:00:31 AM
Subject: Re: Letters of John
Collier
Meant to wish you many happy
returns for the 31st.
How’s the new toy?
Best wishes
Kent
2 Feb Frank
Hofmann wrote:
Thanks much.
The new toy's use is still up in the
air. I scanned a few pages . . . 3, I think . . . several days ago but that is
still in the scanner itself and has to be fed into the computer, for which
process we have not yet had the time. We don't yet know if it's going to work,
or how much time it will take.
I have a couple of questions, from
madam. Where in England are you? Madam has been to England umpteen times and
knows her way around and is curious. We have friends in Leicester and the
Wiltshire area. Do you have anything to do with TV or orchards? Seems an odd
question. Do orchards even exist in England? When I moved here from Ohio I got
so excited by the idea of having orange and lemon trees in the yard that I went
out and bought a bunch at a nursery, and we now enjoy juice from those trees,
30 years later.
The TV question pops up because we were
watching a "Lovejoy" episode last night, which is of course a British
series, and a young woman in a short scene looked just like Minnie Driver, one
of my all-time favorite actors, and I said, "Wow, that's Minnie
Driver!!" Madam said, no, it isn't. However, I looked it up on the
computer and it IS/WAS Minnie Driver. The episode was made in 1992 and she
still had some "baby fat" on her face, which made her unidentifiable
to madam. I however mentally measure dimensions of a face and I knew it was
Minnie. Turns out she was born on Jan. 31, 1970, in London.
Anyway,
still very busy at the mo.
2 Feb Kent Barker wrote
Hello Frank and Madam (perhaps you could
introduce us?)
Yes, TV, radio and orchards. But not
Leicester or Wiltshire.
I was lucky enough to have a hugely
enjoyable career in broadcasting, working for BBC Radio (including North
America correspondent based in NYC 1988-90) and then TV for ITN and Channel
Four news. I retired early and moved from London to the ancestral (well 3
generations) home in the Kent countryside and started (very part time) reviving
and maintaining a traditional English Apple orchard - big full-standard
trees that look wonderful but are next to impossible to prune or pick.
Meantime I started writing novels that
no one would publish and, finally, a book on local smuggling in the 18th
century. Which is where I came across John Collier who was Surveyor of
Customs Officers in Kent. Throw in a partner who lives in Hastings, and I
set out to do a biography of Collier combined with a history of early Georgian
Hastings - basically a fishing village at the time before the Prince Regent
introduced a fad for sea bathing and 'founded' Brighton. That rubbed off
on Hastings just along the coast which, within a decade, became an elegant
resort.
I envy you your citrus fruit ... but
then you are in Orange County aren't you?
Pip, pip.
Kent
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