The White Chateau

[junelike]

This is my first message from me in this forum...but I've been lurking around here for ages! I'm a bit shy so I hope you'll forgive me for this long silence.

Well...I don't know if somebody has read George's last letter to JMB, the one in which he mentions the white chateau, and how it made him feel a romantic...I think there's even a picture of it in the database. I'm visiting Flanders in two weeks and I'm going to visit George's grave at Voormezele Cemetery, and I'd like to seize the opportunity and even see this infamous white chateau, if it's still standing and everything. Does anybody know its exact location?

To Andrew: I read your book about JMB and the boys...let me tell you that I've been studying them since I was a little girl and I'm not easily pleased, and here in Italy is really difficult to read some good material about them...then I read your book and I was overwhelmed. Then I ordered the TV series with Ian Holm...owerwhelmed again. Really, and I mean really, good work.
Now I'm planning to read all the other books about them I can get my hands on...so I think that Robert Greenham will hear from me pretty soon.

By the way..I'm sorry if you find some errors in my messages, English is not my native language.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Alice

[andrew]

George's White Chateau was so badly shelled that it was demolished after the (Great) war, and a rather hideous 20s affair built in its place. That too was boarded up and derelict when I visited it in 1984, and I daresay that also has been swept away.  Do you want to visit the site anyway? In which case I'll have to do some research as I can't now remember how the dickens I found it!

My apologies for not responding sooner, but I only get the time to check my own website once a week, though my Celtic webmaster is working on a system whereby I get notified of any new missives on the forum.

PS  Yes, the White Chateau is in the database - also in the 2003 Yale edition of my book (on p240).

[junelike]

Yeah, I had tought it would be difficult for the White Chateau to still be standing...the region around Ypres was badly affected by the war, Ypres itself was almost entirely destroyed...

If you can find the directions to the site of the Chateu I would be eternally grateful to you! But if you don't have the time it's not a problem...I don't want to be an annoyance.

Alice

[andrew]

Thanks to JS over on the Anon forum, we can add the following info from a website all about the White Chateau:

http://users.pandora.be/blindganger/White%20Chateau.htm

Here is JS's translation from the website's Flemish into French and English:

Juste en dehors du territoire wallon, à Ypres, le long de la route de Menin, il y avait un château appelé « White Château » par les Britanniques. Ce petit château se trouvait sur le domaine de Herenthage (à Geluveld). Ses habitants vivaient très simplement, ce qui était tout à fait normal pour eux.

Outside the French part of Belgium, at Ypres (or Ieper, in Flemish), along the Menin (or Menen) Road, there was a chateau known as the “White Château” by the British. The chateau stood on the estate of Herenthage (at Geluveld). The owners lived very simply and didn’t take their life for granted.

JS adds that he thinks the chateau was rebuilt in the 1970s, but as previosuly mentioned, when I visited the site in 1984, it looked more like a pile from the 1920s and was all boarded up. I've added one or two photos I took of it then to the database....

Alice, if you visit it, do share any photos you take and I'll add them to the database. My email = laurenticwave@aol.com ... and thanks for your comments about my book/TV - when did you first stumble on the Davies family?

[junelike]

I'll be sure to send you an email with any photos I will take...I so hope it won't rain in Ypres, it would be really annoying...but I won't complain!

I did stumble first in JMB and the Davies boys when I was six...and of course it involved Peter Pan. Barrie's other works are so poorly known in comparison with Peter Pan, and being just a child I was eventually bound to encounter the Boy who won't grow up. I was really enamoured with him, I must say! My family wasn't in a really happy situation, and so Neverland did became my own escape...just like the Darling brothers. So one of the first things I did was try to find all the movie versions I could find about Peter Pan, included the Disney one, Peter Pan no Boken, and then Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates. Then I got my hands on the book...and I was enchanted again. I know that I said I was just a child, but I've been more mature than most children, thank to an high IQ and a passion for studying, so I've been able to appreciate this Barrie work very  early. But obtaining the other works of JMB or even biographical informations was really really difficult, but then it began the Internet era and so it came the end of my problems! So I began researching the Web for informations about JMB, and ordering books, and so discovered more and more about him and the Davies boys...I must say I was really lucky because I could begin to use the Internet very early thanks to my father's work. The rest it's history...I'm 24 now! And this means I spent the last 18 years studying and reading everything I could get my hands on!