Victor Canning: characters, themes and locations

Angers (Boy on Platform One)

Town close to the Comte's chateau.

Arsenal (Boy on Platform One)

The manager at the Paddington Station Hotel regularly goes to Arsenal home games, so Peter knows he can safely take the short cut on those afternoons.

Beethoven (Boy on Platform One)

See Mozart.

Belsize Park (Boy on Platform One)

Home of the tourist Peter talks to at Chateau Gontier.

Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas (Boy on Platform One)

French seventeenth century poet. Rundell gives Peter a long extract to test his powers of memory in French.

Caspi (Boy on Platform One)

Second name on the Comte's list, living in Rome.

Champagne (Boy on Platform One)

Peter and Frank stay at the Hotel Champagne in Angers.

Charlotte Street (Boy on Platform One)

Where Peter and his father go to an Italian restaurant for Sunday lunch after attending mass.

Chateau Gontier (Boy on Platform One)

Where Miss Lloyd stops for a picnic and Peter talks to an English tourist who is fishing.

Cherbourg (Boy on Platform One)

Peter and his father travel to the Comte's chateau via Cherbourg and spend a night there. They return the same way, taking the early ferry to Southampton.

Chris (Boy on Platform One)

See Lang, Christopher

Comte de Servais (Boy on Platform One)

See Grubais, Alphonse

Concorde Hotel (Boy on Platform One)

Where Miss Lloyd stays in Angers.

Cornish Riviera (Boy on Platform One)

In France Peter daydreams of going on the Cornish Riviera Express travelling first class.

Courtney, Frank (Boy on Platform One)

Peter's father. He runs a second-hand bookshop in Tottenham Court Road, and organises the evenings at which Peter's memory is demonstrated.

Courtney, Peter (Boy on Platform One)

Main character of the book. He is a boy with a perfect auditory memory, which leads to his being used by the secret services to memorise a vital list.

Courtney, Sarah (Boy on Platform One)

Frank's first wife and gthe mother of Peter.

Daimler (Boy on Platform One)

The official car in which Peter and Frank are driven back from Southampton.

Endsworth, Lord (Boy on Platform One)

Minister in charge of Eric Rundell's service. It is Lady Diana Stormont's friendship with Lady Endsworth that enables her to save Peter and his father from assassination.

Evening Standard (Boy on Platform One)

The paper that Peter's father reads and that Peter collects from the newsagent.

Exeter (Boy on Platform One)

Largest city in Devon. Frank and Peter's first destination when they take the train from Paddington after returning from France.

Fernie (Boy on Platform One)

Coloured youth, friend of Peter.

fishing (Boy on Platform One)

"His grandfather Patrick had taken him fishing once on a lough where he had been as sick as a dog and then got a hook in his finger and the local doctor had had to cut it out and give him injections … just to stop you foamin’ at the mouth and runnin’ round biting people, though the good Lord knows there’s a many in this place could do with it to liven them up …"
Peter talks to a fisherman when they stop for a picnic on the Mayenne, and watches the rows of fishermnen in Angers, noticing that they thrown nothing back, however small.

Galway (Boy on Platform One)

Where Peter's late mother spent her childhood.

Gare Saint-Laud (Boy on Platform One)

Railway station in Angers. "As a station it wasn’t a patch on Paddington, of course. But it was a station and there was a recognizable atmosphere about it. ... The trains were a bit different, but there was the same feeling about them and in him as they came and went.

Gourock (Boy on Platform One)

Where the boat is being refitted on which Chris Lang will be serving as first engineer.

Grubais, Alphonse (Boy on Platform One)

The Comte de Servais. He was at school in England with Eric Rundell where his nickname was All Grubby. "He was small and neat and sort of jockey-sized. His hair which was thin, dark and flecked with grey-and-white streaks was brushed straight back, and he had a little twitch of a moustache like Charlie Chaplin." His son has died as a result of leaked secret information. He has a list of traitors that he is prepared to share with Rundell's department but not in writing or on tape. Just why speaking it to Peter should be an acceptable means of communication is not very clear. He is murdered soon after reciting his list to Peter.

Harper, Mrs. (Boy on Platform One)

Proprietor of the newsagent where Peter collects his father's newspaper.

Haverstock Hill, Hampstead (Boy on Platform One)

Where Peter and his father go to a literary club. It is where Peter's talents are first spotted by the secret service.

Heathrow Airport (Boy on Platform One)

Where Peter opts to go and look at the planes as a Sunday treat.

Hornblower (Boy on Platform One)

See Loire.

Innisfree (Boy on Platform One)

Peter's talent for recall is first discovered when he is able to repeat the whole of Yeats's poem after his mother has read it to him and accuses him of not paying attention.

Ireland (Boy on Platform One)

Peter's mother has taken him there once, his only previous travel outside England. Joan Courtney thinks of Peter's mother as 'the Irish witch'.

Jensen (Boy on Platform One)

Part-time shop assistant who takes over the running of the Tottenham Court Road bookshop when Frank is away. "Jensen wouldn’t mind, he knew. He lived with a widowed sister in a state of frequently broken harmony. The shop was his refuge. Now he could seek it every day."

Joan (Boy on Platform One)

Peter's stepmother, though it turns out later that she is not legally married to Frank Courtney.

Jones (Boy on Platform One)

Name used by the assassin who waits opposite Peter's home in London.

Knight, Dame Laura (Boy on Platform One)

Artist. Frank's first wife has the good sense to know she will never be as talented. and so quits arts school.

Lang, Christopher (Boy on Platform One)

Husband of Joan Courtney, seaman who has returned after having been missing for a year. His wife, having meanwhile presumed him dead, has married Frank Courtney, and Christopher now poses as Joan's brother or "Uncle Chris" to Peter. Frank catches him in bed with Joan on returning form France.

Lloyd, Miss (Boy on Platform One)

Rundell's assistant. She accompanies Peter to France.

Loire (Boy on Platform One)

River in France. The Comte's chateau is on the Loire. Peter knows about the river because it occurs in one of the Captain Hornblower books.

Martin, Blackie (Boy on Platform One)

"In a way it was the same tone old Blackie Martin at Paddington Station would have used if he thought anyone was being too clever with him. Yuh tryin’ to send me up, man?" (p. 9) This is the only reference to Blackie Martin, and I suspect this is a continuity error for Blackie Timms.

May (Boy on Platform One)

Woman who runs a confectionery stall on Paddington Station.

Mayenne (Boy on Platform One)

River at Chateau Gontier in which a man is fishing who turns out to be an English tourist.

Mercedes (Boy on Platform One)

Miss Lloyd impresses Peter by driving him through London at high speed.

Militant Verse (Boy on Platform One)

Poetry magazine from which a lady poet reads to Peter during his performance in Hampstead.

Mozart (Boy on Platform One)

"Remarkable boy you have. Remarkable, but perhaps not unique. There have been others before him. Mozart composing at the age of four, Beethoven at eight, and Schubert at eleven … the human brain is still mostly undiscovered territory." (p. 11)

News of the World (Boy on Platform One)

One of Joan Courtney's Sunday favourite papers.

Paddington Station (Boy on Platform One)

London station serving West of England routes. Peter Courtney lives close by, and he spends a lot of time on the station.

Peter (Boy on Platform One)

See Courtney, Peter

Praed Street (Boy on Platform One)

Street adjacent to Paddington Station.

Radnor Place (Boy on Platform One)

Street where Peter lives.

Renault 16 (Boy on Platform One)

In France Peter is disappointed that Miss Lloyd is not driving her Mercedes but a Renault 16.

Rundell, Eric C. (Boy on Platform One)

Secret service chief who attends the performance in Hampstead and recruits Peter and his father for the task of memorising the Comte's list.

Schubert (Boy on Platform One)

See Mozart.

Serpentine (Boy on Platform One)

Water fetaure in Hyde Park, London, where Teddy Tampion makes contact with the sniper who is to kill Peter.

Servais, Comte de (Boy on Platform One)

See Grubais, Alphonse

S.M.L.E. (Boy on Platform One)

"He squatted down on the stool below the window and picked up the rifle they had supplied him with. It was a rebuilt S.M.L.E. from the old No. 4 World War Two rifle. Sporting caterpillar foresight. Standard and two-leafed rear-sight. Cheapish compared to some. But good enough for this job." The short-magazine Lee Enfield was the standard British Army rifle until the 1960s, and Canning would have been familiarf with it.

Southampton (Boy on Platform One)

Where Peter and Frank are met by an official car on returning from Cherbourg.

Strand Palace Hotel (Boy on Platform One)

Where Chris Lang books in after returning from the Gulf and calls on Joan to join him to make love.

Sunday Express (Boy on Platform One)

One of Joan Courtney's Sunday favourite papers.

Tampion, Edward (Boy on Platform One)

Member of Rundell's department, "the one with the gold tooth and the floppy black hair." Known as 'Teddy'. He is the traitor in the department and is afraid that his name will be on the Comte's list, which of course it is.

Timms, Blackie (Boy on Platform One)

Sweeper at Paddington Station.

Tottenham Court Road (Boy on Platform One)

London street, location of Mr Courtney's bookshop.

trains (Boy on Platform One)

"What was there about trains and Paddington which brought the boy to life? He had gone to the station once to meet him and had watched him unawares for a while and seen a different person, known, liked, cheeky, laughing—a boy he seldom saw at home." (p. 17)

Turbeau, Louis (Boy on Platform One)

First name on the Comte's list, with a Paris address.

Twickenham (Boy on Platform One)

London suburb and home of English rugby. The old man at the Gare Saint-Laud tells Peter that he once went there to watch a game and had his wallet stolen.

Uncle Chris (Boy on Platform One)

See Lang, Chris

war (Boy on Platform One)

"The kiosk lady spoke better English and told him how she had fallen in love with an English fighter pilot who during the War had crash-landed on her father’s farm, saying, 'Only for two weeks he is with us but he goes and takes my heart with him. Since then I marry twice. But—' she grinned '—no good. You see I have no more no heart to give. When you grow up, you be good garçon and don’t take somebody’s heart and walk away with it.' " (p. 30) There is perhaps an echo here of Canning's war story Green Battlefield.

Walther PPK (Boy on Platform One)

The pistol with which the Comte is killed by the Russian assassin.

Yeats (Boy on Platform One)

See Innisfree

Zinkeisen, Anna (Boy on Platform One)

Artist. Frank's first wife has the good sense to know she will never be as talented. and so quits arts school.

Ere on my bed (Boy on Platform One)

First line of the poem Peter recites to Mr Rundell and Miss Lloyd.

Il etait une fois un grand ours (Boy on Platform One)

The Comte's passage.

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