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Was anyone else watching A Seaside Parish on BBC2 at 19:30 this evening? Was that really Michael Turner directing the music-hall concert in Boscastle? It looked exactly like him, but I was distracted when he was introduced, so I am not 100% certain.

If so, and he lives in that neck-of-the-woods, does anyone know if he was in any way affected by the terrible flooding incident recently?

Well spotted jock123! I didn't see the programme, but yes Mr Turner does indeed live in Boscastle. As soon as I heard about the flooding last month, I checked a map of the area and found that the part of the village in which he lives was unaffected by damage - though no doubt many of his friends in the village would have suffered loss.

I'm not surprised to hear about him directing a music-hall concert - he has told me that old-time music is one of his passions and has edited several anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian music, which are still available if you search for them.

Ed

Excuse me,

but who's Mr Turner please?

It's a british tintinologue?

thomas
who's Mr Turner please? It's a british tintinologue?

One of the top two, it would be fair to say, I think...!

Michael Turner is half of the team who have been translating the Hergé books into English ever since Methuen started to publish them here. In fact, he and Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper (the other half of the team) were amongst those instrumental in getting the books published here at all, as Methuen - the publishers they worked for – did not handle comic-strip books at all.

They were good friends of Hergé’s, and the translation process was at times almost collaborative, as they had direct access to Hergé himself when they had questions. They have the same love of language and puns as Hergé, which he appreciated.

They are still working on the translations, having been given the job of doing the facsimile editions; they also appeared with Michael Farr (who wrote the Companion, and who must rank as “Tintinologue 3” in the UK) and Bernard Tordeur at a UK Tintin conference to mark the Greenwich exhibition “Tintin at Sea”.

Michael Turner is also “famous” for having looked quite like Professor Calculus (Tournesol) when younger... Just a coincidence, but quite funny...

Oh and Ed, thanks for the reassurance about Mr. T. It would have been a shame if he’d been involved (not that it was any better that it happened to anyone at all).

Thank you jock123

I think this is the most appropriate place to put this : for anyone who might be curious as to what our translators look like, I've come across a photograph of them here, taken in 2004. We owe those two a lot, to be sure !

That's great Richard, where did you manage to find it?

Ed

Well found, Richard! It’s also nice to know that MT&LL-C are immortalised in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery!! Recognition at last!

Wow ! It's great to see a photo of them ! As a comparison, here's a photo of the translators with Hergé in London in the 60s :

edcharlesadams
where did you manage to find it?

I just did a search for "Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper" on Google ; I was curious whether her or Mr. Turner had ever translated anything apart from Hergé's books. Any ideas, anyone ?

There's another photo here, which came from an article on the website of 'Kettering Today', which can be read here (note : that's a Google cache of the article, since it's no longer available).