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Authors: June Thomson
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from Afghanistan, including eighteen invalids.’ All of themwere transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, Watson presumably among them.
We are given a few clues to Watson’s state of mind on returning to the place from which, less than a year before, he had set out with such high hopes of a successful future in the army. He was certainly bitter. His health, as he himself states, was ‘irretrievably ruined’ and the prospects of beginning a new career in civilian life seemed bleak. Even his rugby-playing days were over. From the symptoms of which he was later to complain, including sleeplessness, depression, irritability and nervous tension, he was probably suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition for which today he would receive treatment.
There was no one to whom he could turn. He had neither ‘kith nor kin’ living in England, which suggests both his parents were dead by this time, as well as his elder brother who, although his prospects had been good, had died in poverty after taking to drink, leaving Watson the gold watch which belonged to their father. Consequently, on his discharge from Netley, Watson made his way to London, which at least was familiar to him from his student days at Bart’s, and booked himself into a hotel off the Strand. He also acquired a bull pup, company for him in the lonely days which lay ahead. * It was a ‘comfortless,meaningless existence’, made worse by the additional burden of money worries.
On being invalided out of the army, he had been awarded a pension of 11s 6d a day (about 57 pence), which should have been enough to keep him in moderate comfort. It was, in fact, more than his officer’s pay of £200 a year. But he now had to find the money for food and accommodation and London could be costly, especially as Watson’s tastes ran to the more expensive places in which to drink. It is doubtful if, during his short army career, he had managed to save much. If he had, it was soon gone and he was faced with the unpleasant choice of either moving out of London altogether or finding cheaper accommodation.
It was at this low point in his life that Watson’s luck began to turn. For just over a mile away, in Montague Street, Sherlock Holmes, who had been flat-hunting on his own account and had found a set of rooms which seemed suitable, was turning over in his mind the possibility of finding a fellow-tenant who would go halves with him on the rent.
* Most commentators accept 1852 as the year of Watson’s birth.
* According to tradition, Rahere was Henry I’s jester.
* Joseph Merrick was the subject of the film The Elephant Man (1980), starring John Hurt.
† Frederick Treves, who went on to qualify as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, later became a consulting surgeon at the London Hospital as well as a distinguished and highly-paid private practitioner. He was knighted in 1901.
* The substances from which medicines are compounded.
* The Royal Victoria Military Hospital was demolished in 1966/7. The site is now a public park.
* See Appendix One.
* Strictly speaking, Watson was never a member of the Indian Army but of the British Army serving in India.
* Bobbie was subsequently run over and killed by a hansom cab in Gosport. He can be seen, stuffed and mounted in a glass case and still proudly wearing the Afghan Medal round his neck, in the Royal Berkshire Regiment’s museum in Salisbury.
* Despite their defeat, the Royal Berkshire Regiment still carries ‘Maiwand’ as one of its battle honours.
* In The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana , Jack Tracy suggests that the phrase ‘to keep a bull pup’ was Anglo-Indian slang meaning ‘to have a quick temper’. However, most commentators seem to agree that the dog really existed.
CHAPTER FOUR
MEETING
1st January 1881
‘He [Holmes] is a little queer in his ideas – an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know, he is a decent fellow enough.’
Stamford:
We are given a few clues to Watson’s state of mind on returning to the place from which, less than a year before, he had set out with such high hopes of a successful future in the army. He was certainly bitter. His health, as he himself states, was ‘irretrievably ruined’ and the prospects of beginning a new career in civilian life seemed bleak. Even his rugby-playing days were over. From the symptoms of which he was later to complain, including sleeplessness, depression, irritability and nervous tension, he was probably suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition for which today he would receive treatment.
There was no one to whom he could turn. He had neither ‘kith nor kin’ living in England, which suggests both his parents were dead by this time, as well as his elder brother who, although his prospects had been good, had died in poverty after taking to drink, leaving Watson the gold watch which belonged to their father. Consequently, on his discharge from Netley, Watson made his way to London, which at least was familiar to him from his student days at Bart’s, and booked himself into a hotel off the Strand. He also acquired a bull pup, company for him in the lonely days which lay ahead. * It was a ‘comfortless,meaningless existence’, made worse by the additional burden of money worries.
On being invalided out of the army, he had been awarded a pension of 11s 6d a day (about 57 pence), which should have been enough to keep him in moderate comfort. It was, in fact, more than his officer’s pay of £200 a year. But he now had to find the money for food and accommodation and London could be costly, especially as Watson’s tastes ran to the more expensive places in which to drink. It is doubtful if, during his short army career, he had managed to save much. If he had, it was soon gone and he was faced with the unpleasant choice of either moving out of London altogether or finding cheaper accommodation.
It was at this low point in his life that Watson’s luck began to turn. For just over a mile away, in Montague Street, Sherlock Holmes, who had been flat-hunting on his own account and had found a set of rooms which seemed suitable, was turning over in his mind the possibility of finding a fellow-tenant who would go halves with him on the rent.
* Most commentators accept 1852 as the year of Watson’s birth.
* According to tradition, Rahere was Henry I’s jester.
* Joseph Merrick was the subject of the film The Elephant Man (1980), starring John Hurt.
† Frederick Treves, who went on to qualify as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, later became a consulting surgeon at the London Hospital as well as a distinguished and highly-paid private practitioner. He was knighted in 1901.
* The substances from which medicines are compounded.
* The Royal Victoria Military Hospital was demolished in 1966/7. The site is now a public park.
* See Appendix One.
* Strictly speaking, Watson was never a member of the Indian Army but of the British Army serving in India.
* Bobbie was subsequently run over and killed by a hansom cab in Gosport. He can be seen, stuffed and mounted in a glass case and still proudly wearing the Afghan Medal round his neck, in the Royal Berkshire Regiment’s museum in Salisbury.
* Despite their defeat, the Royal Berkshire Regiment still carries ‘Maiwand’ as one of its battle honours.
* In The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana , Jack Tracy suggests that the phrase ‘to keep a bull pup’ was Anglo-Indian slang meaning ‘to have a quick temper’. However, most commentators seem to agree that the dog really existed.
CHAPTER FOUR
MEETING
1st January 1881
‘He [Holmes] is a little queer in his ideas – an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know, he is a decent fellow enough.’
Stamford:
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