The Dudley Theory

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 92732

Having started this discussion about Dudley as a child, perhaps I 
should go a little deeper and explain how my thoughts came about.

When I read a book, certainly for the first time, I tend to read for 
pleasure and, often, nuances and undertones escape me. It's only on 
subsequent readings that I may pick up on detail which is helpful to 
the story line. As I have read PS on subsequent occasions, this has 
indeed happened. When I first read it, I passed over the fact in the 
second chapter that Harry and Dudley were obviously in the same year 
at school. At a first reading, I subconsciously put Dudley as being 
somewhat older than Harry. 

Why? To begin with, Harry seems in the book to be younger than 15 
months. I am not sure that I would leave a toddler of this age 
wrapped in blankets on a doorstep at the end of October. When my 
children were that age, they were mobile and toddling; they were in 
cots at night to stop them wandering around or hurting themselves, 
What would have happened if young Mr.Potter had got active during the 
night?

And then Dudley. Maybe US toddlers can cope with "candy" or "canny" – 
it's not UK English, they probably have to deal with "sweeties" and I 
still think back to where my flock were at 15 months. Perhaps, we 
didn't feed them as many sweets as parents do nowadays (or in 1981). 
Petunia seems to be the epitome of a modern, middle-class suburban 
mother. They will have their children in a pushchair if they are out. 
If the child fusses, it is unusual to see a mother picking a child up 
and carrying it as well as pushing. She might have been going to a 
neighbour with Dudley hand in hand. That is not what I would expect 
from her environment. Children would be off to nursery fairly early 
or mum would be at home seeing to the child. Visiting neighbours 
would be more a social visit in the evenings. Again, a child of 16 
months being led by the hand (or even free) would have coordination 
difficulties keeping its feet and kicking its mother and Dudley was 
reported as kicking his mother "all the way up the street".

That was my thinking. OK, Dudley is overfed, spoiled rotten. But the 
differences between the two boys, separated by only a month or so 
seemed surprising to me.