Cultural clues to locations/origins

[hamster8 at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 22698

Amy ...

<snippage> "I am wondering:  are there other such assumptions that 
you Brits carry about the characters that you might not even think to 
mention because to you they're obvious, if you follow me?

<further snippage>

"Are you all carrying around secret information about where Little 
Hangleton and Cokeworth are and where Dean and Lee and Madam Pomfrey 
hail from?  Say more, please!"

Well, I saw your response on OT_Chatter, so I just had to leap over 
and Britpick for you.  Yay.  Incidentally, if I take this offtopic, 
could one of the mods feel free to run me over?  Ta.

Right.  In answer, yes.  I do.

Hangleton exists.  It is a suburb of Brighton on the Sussex coast, 
and is apparently fairly bog-standard suburbia, I've not been there 
ever during my time at uni, us students tend to keep to the cheap 
Victorian terraces in the city centre :-).  I *wouldn't* place Little 
Hangleton here, but it sounds like the kind of place that might be 
somewhere along the south coast, Kent or Sussex, maybe.

Cokeworth sounds to me like a northern industrial city, a la Coketown 
in Dickens' 'Hard Times.'  A dreary place with run down warehouses 
and a decaying canal.  I think this is probably what JK was thinking 
of too.  'Railview Hotel' certainly calls to mind a large marshalling 
yard or something.  Maybe Crewe?

Little Whinging, reminds me deeply of the Surrey village where I 
live ... in fact, I have a hard time trying to conceive of the 
Dursley sequences of all four books being set in my area ... it just 
seems very right.  I've often felt that when we *imagine* where the 
books are set, we imagine what we know.  Therefore some of you might 
have different ideas of how certain locations will look, which are 
likely to be more accurate depending on your experience of British 
suburbia (I live there).  I now cannot form a mental picture of 
Harry's primary school, as mentioned in the early parts of P/SS 
without thinking of mine, which was a small redbrick Victorian 
place.  I have the same problem with the Dursleys' house ... I find 
myself imagining it happening in my house, on that same floor plan, 
Harry kept in *that* cupboard, Weasleys arriving through *that* 
fireplace, etc, etc.  Does this happen to anybody else?

As for characters: Dean sounds like an Essex lad to me.  To be a 
Hammer, he probably has to be from somewhere in East London.  If he 
was north, he'd be an Arsenal or Tottenham man, if he was south of 
the river, he'd be with Millwall or Charlton.  West Ham to me smacks 
slightly of that whole area of London for its supporter base (if I'm 
wrong, tell me) ... I conceive Dean as from a fairly well off family 
who have done well in Muggle business, and moved out to the more 
expensive suburbs from Hackney or Tower Hamlets.  Lee is probably 
from the same area, or possibly Brixton in the South.  He has the 
character, I think, of a genuine Souwf Londoner ... a bit of a 
geezer, but with a heart of gold, kind of an artful dodger type.  In 
terms of Afro-Caribbean communities outside London, there aren't very 
many of great significance ... so a fair bet they're both Londoners?

And Madam Pomfrey has to be French, surely?

I haven't actually delurked on this list for some time now, so 
*tosses quick wave to room* ... nice to see you all again.

Al

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'Seriously, it isn't what it looks like,' said Draco.  'We're 
plumbers.'
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