Origins of Lockhart's name (WAS Pullman is Lockhart)

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 60388

Following a fantastically thought out argument, Kia wrote:
 Saying Rowling wrote Lockhart as Pullman is a nice theory, but if  
Granger has done the littlest of researchs, he must have known 
that this is impossible. The only piece of evidence Granger has  is 
that Pullman wrote about a (female) character named Sally 
Lockhart once, which to me and with keeping Rowling's widely 
available quotes in mind, is more of an homage than a diss.

I, Kirstini wanted to chip in:
Kia, I agree with your argument absolutely. I just thought I'd pop 
my head up to back up the above concerning the arbitrariness of 
Granger's argument.
Lockhart is a very Scottish name. I'll go further than that and say 
its a very *Edinburgh* name. I grew up in Edinburgh, in an area 
called Craiglockhart (also houses the former WW1 hospital where 
patients like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were treated for 
the effects of shell-shock, including memory loss, cf Pat Barker's 
Regeneration trilogy) - there are dozens of other examples 
of "Lockhart" used as place-name around the city, Lockharton 
Gardens, for example, is slightly nearer JKR's old stamping ground.
I presume this Granger bloke is an American, and therefore wouldn't 
have this knowledge available.
 That being my background, I've always read the name partly as 
homage to JKR's Edinburgh roots, and partly as one of those 
*significant* literary names - Lockhart is someone who "locks" 
the "hearts"  of the women he meets. He also "locks" information in 
the head of all the victims of his memory charms (might be getting 
onto shaky interpretive ground with this one). I've always read it 
as a counter to Mr Lockwood in Wuthering Heights - he who "would 
lock". Admittedly, from this angle Lockwood would (oh dear) be a 
better name for Lockhart, but it lacks that ritzy, Edinburgh-being-a-
bit-uppitty ring to it, I suppose (Craiglockhart is a rather genteel 
suburb. We're very *proud* of the former mental hospital...).

As for JKR having met the model for her Lockhart at an "English" 
book fair (I wonder if the Granger man means the Edinburgh Book 
Festival? Scottish. Oops, there I go getting uppitty.) - I used to 
work at one of these, and Philip Pullman read there once. He's a 
stuttering, obviously ferociously intelligent, but very nervous 
little man. I think he was wearing quite thick glasses, but I'm not 
sure if my memory has just grafted that on for extra effect. Not 
very Lockhart.

Obviously, however, all interpretations of this sort of thing are 
absolutely subjective - I find the Craiglockhart angle very 
interesting myself, but then hey! I would. I do also wonder about 
this need to convince everyone that JKR is a Christian author. The 
Church of Scotland isn't a terribly popular institution. Obviously 
this is no reason to assume that JKR *doesn't* attend regularly, but 
if she can't even send her daughter to school because of kidnap 
threats, it seems odd that she'd be making a weekly appearance in 
the same place. Personally, however, I've always wondered if that 
interview wasn't propaganda for North America, which as a nation 
comes across to us in Europe as rather right-wing about its 
Christianity. Although I  know there are a number of very good 
arguments to be made about her use of Christian imagery. 
Oh dear. Can open, worms everywhere.  
Kirstini