Myers Literary Guide:
The North-East
 

GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON (1874 - 1936)

G.K. Chesterton sets his Father Brown story 'The Worst Crime in the World' in a Northumberland castle, evidently Bamburgh. Not only that, his famous clerical sleuth was a curate in Hartlepool. In 'The Blue Cross' the familiarity of the priest with the 'spiked bracelet' up the sleeve, comes from his 'little flock' in the town. 'When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets.' After swapping parcels with Flambeau, he goes on, rather sadly:

'I learnt that, too, from a poor fellow in Hartlepool. He used to do it with handbags he stole at railway stations, but he's in a monastery now.'

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