His passport shows he had previously flown into and out of Orly in the summer of 1955. [1]
Much of “Defying Gravity” Chapter 70 deals with Dr. Brown’s 1956 trip to Europe, for which Paul Schatzkin had to rely heavily on testimony from “Morgan” and “O’Riley”. *
Referring to Dr. Brown’s 1955 and 1956 trips to Europe, Paul Schatzkin writes:
Of the trips themselves, there are no diaries, no journals, and none of the living witnesses have come forth to identify themselves, much less provide any details.
OK, that’s not entirely true. There is one witness to the second trip who has shared what he could. We know him in these pages as “O’Riley.”
From the stamps in Dr. Brown’s passport Paul Schatzkin was able to write:
[2] [3]We know from Dr. Brown's passport when he arrived in Paris, when he went to England, and when he sailed home.
…the second [trip to Europe] begins with his arrival at Orly on the 5th of March, 1956 and ends with his departure from Southampton, England aboard the French liner Liberté on March 29.
Although he does not give the date on which Dr. Brown went to England, he does write:
Townsend Brown was still in France for his fifty-first birthday - March 18, 1956 - when he was photographed outside a Paris Bistro with four unidentified sailors and a smartly dressed civilian about a half-a-head shorter than Brown. That’s O’Riley, who was again assigned to accompany Dr. Brown during his travels as an escort and liaison.
And towards the end of the chapter he writes:
The final days of the second trip to Europe were a whirlwind tour through England.
Paul Schatzkin then relates “O’Riley’s” recollections of Dr. Brown’s activities at some of the places he visited.
One of these details the day Dr. Brown took a break from whatever he was doing in Cheltenham, England, to visit the Cheltenham Racecourse during the Cheltenham Festival in order to learn as much as he could about horses so that he could keep up with his ‘horse crazy’ daughter.
“I had some buddies there and knew we could get into the barns for this lesson he was expecting from me. I did not expect that he would insist on getting up at four in the morning so that he could watch the morning works. He wanted to watch the way the horses were cooled off and bedded down. He talked to the stable boys and the jockeys, he asked me many, many questions in rapid fire.”
Later that day they watched the running of the Gold Cup, the crowning event of the Festival. O’Riley recalls Dr. Brown made a remark that it was too bad that the track seemed so hard, that it must be terrible on the horses legs. “That was a very astute observation considering that course had a bad reputation for breaking horses down. I think he bet on the winning horse. Then he went back to the work at hand and he thanked me very much. I wondered after that how many busy fathers would have taken the day like that to ‘cram’ on information so that he could keep up with a ‘horse crazy’ daughter.”
The Cheltenham Festival (from Wikipedia)
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the most prestigious meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom. The festival takes place annually in March at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The meeting usually coincides with Saint Patrick's Day, and is popular with Irish visitors. Until 2005, the Festival had traditionally been held over the course of three days. [4]
The Cheltenham Gold Cup (from Wikipedia)
The Cheltenham Gold Cup is a Grade 1 National Hunt chase in the United Kingdom. The race is scheduled to take place each year during the Cheltenham Festival in March.
It is the most prestigious of all National Hunt events, and it is sometimes referred to as the Blue Riband of jump racing. [5]
The 1956 Cheltenham Gold Cup
In view of the above, and because St Patrick’s Day fell on a Saturday that year, I assumed that the 1956 Cheltenham Festival must have been held in the following week, (i.e. from the 20th to the 22nd March), with the climax of the event, the Gold Cup, being run on the final day.
I was rather surprised therefore to discover that the Cheltenham Racecourse official records show that the 1956 Gold Cup was run on Thursday, 8th March, 1956.
Geoff
* “O’Riley” posted under the name “twigsnapper” on Paul Schatzkin’s Forum. “O’Riley” has also been referred to as “Boston”, “Harold Garrity” and “Harold Quinn” on the various forums and/or in the two books.
[1] “Defying Gravity” Chapter 70.
[2] http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4434803/French% ... -small.jpg
[2] http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4434803/French% ... -small.jpg
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheltenham_Festival
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheltenham_Gold_Cup
Annotated March 1956 Calendar:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4434803/French% ... lendar.jpg