anteros_lmc | Review: Cochrane in Fact and Fiction

David Cordingly's
Cochrane the Dauntless

On Saturday partner and I went over to Edinburgh for the event Cochrane in Fact and Fictionhosted by the National Museums of scotland to coincide with their exhibition Admiral Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander. The first talk was by David Cordingly, author of Cochrane the Dauntless, who presented a summary of Cochrane's naval career, the impact of his conviction for stock market fraud and his lasting legacy in Latin American. The second was by Stuart Allan, Senior Curator of Military History at the NMS, who presented a highly entertaining romp through Cochrane's impact on historical naval fiction. Both presentations were excellent. Although Cordingly more or less presented a summary of his book, he is a very engaging speaker and he illustrated his talk with lots of contemporary paintings from the National Maritime Museum where he was previously Keeper of Pictures. Allen was also brilliant and came across as less of a senior curator and more of an over excited fanboy!

I took copious notes during both presentations which I'll try and write up at some point. In fact I took so many notes that the elderly gentlemen behind me asked if I was doing a PhD. Oops! I resisted replying "Nah, I'm just a fangirl" and said I was doing some research just for fun ;)

Patrick O'Brian
"shy and repressed"?

On behalf of

esteven I asked Cordingly if he could tell us more about James Guthrie, Cochrane's surgeon and life long confidante. I didn't mention Stephen Maturin but Cordingly interpreted the question as "Did O'Brian base Maturin on Guthrie?" He said that he had asked O'Brian's stepson Nikolai Tosltoy this question Tolstoy had relied that he thought not specifically. Cordingly suggested that O'Brian would have known the story of Guthrie being left in command of the Speedy during the action against the Gamo from Cochrane's own autobiography and that he used this as the starting point to create the character of Maturin. He also added that O'Brian put a lot of his own, somewhat fabricated, personna into Maturin. For example O'Brian allowed people to believe he was Irish, whereas he was in fact English.

Cordingly also said that he had met O'Brian once and that he was "shy, repressed and very hard to talk to." He added that he had once been asked to give O'Brien a tour of the NMMs galleries and that it "had not been a pleasant experience."

I spoke to Cordingly after the lecture and thanked him for answering the question and he seemed very approachable and willing to talk :)

Horatio Hornblower,
the man that bankrupt ITV?!

In his potted history of naval adventure fiction Allen covered Defoe, Smolett, Scott, Fenimore Cooper, Marryat and O'Brian, but he described Forester and Hornblower as "his favourite". Yay! However he also said that the Hornblower tv series "almost bankrupt ITV" Boo! But then he did show a very pretty slide of Horatio so I'll forgive him. He referred to Hornblower as the quintessential man alone, a man defined by his inner turmoil. He then rather cheekily suggested that in Captain Hornblower RN Gregory Peck expressed the depths of Hornblower's self doubt by clearing his throat and pacing the deck. Which to be fair is pretty much what Forester has him do!

Thomas Cochrane
Ginger genes will out!

After the lectures we went up to exhibition were Allen appeared shortly afterwards with a group of real live Latin American naval officers who were being given a guided tour around the exhibition. They looked quite awe struck! I was rather more distracted by a young chap who bore an uncanny resemblance to the young Ioan Gruffudd. It took all my self restraint not to break open the display case containing Cochrane's uniform and wrestle the guy into it. (The uniform that is, not the display case ;)

And as if that wasn't enough we also got to see two real live Cochranes! During tea break partner pointed out a tall red haired bloke and said "Do you think he's related?" I told him not to be silly but it turned out he was! We heard him being introduced to Cordingly along with another elderly Cochrane who Cordingly was clearly on familiar terms with.

All in all it really was a really rather fabulous day out for a couple of AoS geeks!