What do you think happened to characters from your childhood?

[Squigean]

(Bear with me, I'm off ill and got too much time to think.)

I was just thinking about the Secret Garden - it's been made into another film; out this year.

It's set in 1910 (or 11) Dickon was 12 I think (?). So will be 16 in 1914. Good chance he's off to the trenches at some point, highly possible he dies there.

Colin was 10 so will miss out on being having to go and probably continued being obnoxious and privileged. (Might be hard to tell, but I didn't like Colin.) He would probably miss being conscripted - as he would be 39 when WW2 started and probably married. (Plus I can't recall when the upper-aged men got conscripted, it wasn't immediately and i think Colin would probably have just missed out age-wise).

Mary I think would be married off and that would be that for her. If she's lucky she might have a passionate affair with the gardener.(Probably not Ben Weatherstaff; thinking more along the lines of Oliver Mellors.)

Martha (my favourite character) I think would have married, had many children and lived near her mother.

I'm going to figure out Enid Blyton characters now. (Despite a lot of them being knob heads.)

@PrincessLouis Susan just wasn't on the platform or train, which is why she didn't die. I do feel sorry for her though, losing all her family like that (I think their parents also died). She wouldn't get to Narnia-heaven anyway though, because she refuses to believe in it. Like the dwarves who did actually get to Narnia-heaven but couldn't see or interact with it because they wouldn't believe.

I hated what he did to Susan. Just hated it.

@bintang : Me too. I thought it was unnecessarily harsh, especially given that other characters, like Eustace, were able to redeem themselves.

Julian is indeed a right-wing Tory, if you read the Famous Five for Grown Ups books by Bruno Vincent

I was reading the Railway Children with the dc and as an adult it’s impossible not to be aware of the looming shadow of WWI. The values and expectations of childhood were shaping them up to be willing cannon fodder.

The famous 5

George follows her dad into science and makes a big breakthrough in the field of medicine.
Anne gets married and dutifully pushes out a couple of nice middle class children.
Dick is still an obnoxious little twerp, he goes into banking and later gets convicted of having sex with another man in a public toilet.
Julian goes into the navy and sails the seven seas.

Dick is still an obnoxious little twerp, he goes into banking and later gets convicted of having sex with another man in a public toilet.

I don't see Julian in the navy though. I definitely agree with the thoughts that he's a Tory. I imagine him to be the MD of some company or another and extremely pompous.

@halfsoaked - apparently someone has written Chalet Girls Grown Up which features Reg having an affair with Mary Lou and a load of other unfortunate events. Opinion on the thread I heard about it from was ambivalent...
I thought it was a horrible book; I got the feeling the author didn't actually like the triplets very much. "New Beginnings At The Chalet School" is much better.
Barbarara; There is a book about the Railway Children's children, called The Return of the Railway Children. It's set in WW2

Not blessed with a good imagination but really love this thread OP ! Has anyone got any ideas what would have became of the Just William lot ?

I read the “sequel” Malory Towers books that focus on Felicity’s time at MT after Darrell leaves. At one point Darrell and the others come back for a reunion. Sally is apparently teaching at an infants’ school, Alicia is in the police force, Mary -Lou is a nurse (although this is mentioned in the original series), and Darrell is a newspaper reporter and has written a book based on her experiences at school, which is going to be published... by the first publishers’ she tried, no rejections or going through agents for her. Not particularly realistic! Felicity’s still in her final year but it’s mentioned that she’s good at science/biology rather than arty subjects like Darrell.

What else happened to Jinny at Finmory aside from marrying Ken?
I always thought she would become like Keziah the wise woman.

Hopefully that though.

I think Jill Crewe and Ann Derry from the Jill (Ruby Ferguson) series went off to do secretarial courses. That was in one of the last books I think. I suspect they wore tweeds and pearls and rode hunters (and their husbands ultimately divorced them over the horsy obsession) at the weekend and never quite realised they had turned into Susan Pike replicas.

Or No!

Ann Derry ended up like Camilla Parker Bowles and Jill became a girl groom to Carl Hester and felt unrequited love. (Because he is gay).

I think George would become Lix Storm in The Hour - a chain smoking foreign affairs journalist covering war zones and getting involved with a string of unsuitable men due to her daddy issues. I actually think Anne would transform from a 1950s housewife into a bit of a feminist, she was a bit feisty in the later books. Just a bit.
I often wonder about the magic faraway tree characters. Do they remember the enchanted wood when they grow up? I have this vision of them forgetting or thinking they made it up (although their parents seemed remarkably fine with the whole thing) and wandering through the woods unable to see the fairies - perhaps until one of them gets really old and can see them again. They could go to the land of Really Good Retirement Homes.

I also wonder about Milly Molly Mandy. Will she marry Billy Blunt and realise her dream of running a shop (I think that was what she wanted to do?). I remember Little Friend Susan wanted to be a nurse with ribbons. I wonder if Billy would fight in World War 2? It seems likely.

"I do find a lot of the later Victorian books and the Edwardian ones almost unbearably sad for this reason - the shadow of WW1 looming over them horribly"

My DD can't watch Fiddler on the roof because of what was to come.

Julian becomes a solicitor and marries Henry from Mystery Moor after randomly bumping into her on a London street in his lunchbreak.

Oh I agree, Mary definitely did marry Dickon. They had three children as Mary was an only child and wanted her children not to be.

Find-outers

Fatty becomes a spy working for MI5 during the Cold War - he is fluent in both Russian, Polish and Italian and takes on various disguises over the years including - Professor of mathematics, American billionaire businessman, engineering specialist and down-and-out tramp.

Bets becomes a police detective, solves many crimes and is promoted to become the first ever female Chief Constable.

Larry tries to join the civil service but repeatedly fails the entry exam despite his parents paying a fortune on private tuition. He eventually gets a job in a hardware shop and can talk fairly knowledgeably about lawn mowers.

Pip joins his father's business and dutifully takes it over, marries and had kids but cheats on his wife with his secretary.

Daisy gets married to a boring solicitor type and has three children. She is a rather uptight, but loving, mother.

Just William - discovers religion and becomes a devout hermit priest atoning for his childhood

Violet Elizabeth finds herself on a trip to India and opens a home for the poor.

ikl You have a great imagination - but I just do not see that happening to William!! I think he would be far more likely to become an Antarctic explorer.

If anyone lives in the north west , the Theatre by the lake are doing a musical of Mallory Towers

DH only recently told me about the train crash in the Narnia books and they all died except Susan. Funny thing is, I read the books as a child and watched the television series and had no idea about the ending! Nor did my parents!

Or I guess Mary and Dickson plan for get married and have millions of children but WWI happens ...

@puffmais love your Mallory towers and St Clare's ones! Can you write the books? some of those seemed harsh but very believable!