Author: Tim Dracup
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Brigid Antonia Brophy (1929-1995) was born in Ealing, London, to John Brophy, an author and journalist, and Charis, nee Grundy, a teacher. She attended a variety of secondary schools before winning a scholarship to Oxford, where she studied classics. But she was invited to leave without completing her degree, for reasons she preferred to gloss…
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Henry Marie Joseph Fredéric Expedite Millon de Montherlant (1895-1972) was born in Paris to Roman Catholic and minor aristocrat parents. His father, employed by the Ministry of Finance, died in 1914; his mother, formerly a society belle but latterly an invalid, succumbed the following year. The youthful Henry had already been inducted into the mysteries…
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We were finally ready to complete the South Downs Way in the final days of May 2026, having reached Alfriston in sad circumstances at the end of January. Our journey involved an early train to Clapham Junction, followed by the 08:01 service to Polegate and a 25 community bus service to Alfriston. We arrived at…
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Tracy selected our next HF walking holiday, this time in Liguria, North West Italy. ‘Cinque Terre’ refers to five coastal villages located in the province of La Spezia. The surrounding area forms the Cinque Terre National Park. This part of the Ligurian coastline, extending to Portovenere with its three neighbouring islands, just south of the…
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I completed the South West Coast Path in September 2025, arriving at Poole Harbour, South Haven Point some eight years after I had walked the section from Minehead to Porlock Weir in Autumn 2017. But Tracy had unfinished business, because she didn’t join me until we walked from Porlock Weir to Lynmouth in 2019. So,…
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Jane Sydney Bowles, nee Auer (1917-1973) was born to Jewish parents in New York City. She was a sickly child, suffering from tuberculous arthritis, causing her mother to take her to Switzerland for treatment. She met writer and composer Paul Bowles (1910-1999) in 1937 and they married the following year, honeymooning in Central America. Both…
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This Dracup family history post still has some loose ends. There are conundrums in every family tree, and I have long puzzled over the marital history of this particular Arthur Dracup. I flatter myself that I’ve made considerable progress, but I’m still missing a few pieces of the jigsaw. I’ve flagged those up below, in…
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I had originally intended that our next leg of the Thames Path would take us from Maidenhead to Staines or Shepperton, with an overnight stop en route. But, owing to time pressures, we opted instead for a day trip, arriving at Maidenhead by mid-morning and progressing to Datchet, or possibly beyond. It was a bright,…
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Donald Richard DeLillo was born in November 1936 in New York City and grew up in the Bronx’s ‘Little Italy’. He graduated from a private Catholic high school and attended nearby Fordham University, emerging in 1958 with a degree in communications. While working as an advertising copywriter he began to publish occasional short stories, leaving…
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Having spent the latter part of February 2025 at HF’s Monk Coniston country house in the Southern Lake District, we decided to repeat the experience in February 2026, this time further north. When booking in late November, we anticipated few problems, beyond the ever unpredictable Lakes weather, It was a bargain, too: we paid a…
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Six months after our last visit we returned to the South Downs Way, continuing the tradition of celebrating Tracy’s birthday on this particular trail. Despite threatened blizzards and deluges in the run-up to departure, the weather proved comparatively benign. Sun was in rather short supply, but we managed to dodge most of the showers and…
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Romain Gary (1914-1980) was born Roman Leibovich Kacew in Vilnius, then part of the Russian Empire. His parents, both Jewish, divorced in 1925. After periods in Moscow and Warsaw, he and his mother arrived in Nice. He studied law before joining the French Air Force in 1938, training as a pilot. Following the French Armistice…
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An occasional scrapbook, wherein I shall collect and reflect on some of the more egregious abuses of this appalling United States Government. The entries are in reverse order, so the newest are at the top. Exhibit 7: The Illegal War with Iran, February/March 2026 I write this at the point where both parties have apparently…
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If last year was lively on Eponymous (aka timdracup.com), 2025 has been positively manic. In 2024, I published 26 posts and thought that was good going. But this is my 41st post of 2025. That includes 15 book reviews, 12 musical posts in my Ouroboros series, five posts devoted to our progress along various English…
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Paul Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was born in Lübeck, Germany. His father was a wealthy Lutheran grain merchant; his mother, a Brazilian-born Roman Catholic with German and Portuguese ancestry. When his father died in 1891, the family moved to Munich, where Mann lived until 1933. In 1905 he married Katia Pringsheim, daughter of a Jewish mathematician…
Eponymous 