The Saint Club Christmas Letter 1994

Ten years ago my Father, Leslie Charteris, addressed his Christmas letter My esteemed little goons, ghouls and gibber-twiggers". His well known flair for creative alliteration is but one measure of the man I so fondly remember. Letters were addressed to me in equally endearing terms, "Dearest beetlepuss, kids and kidlets, liddle shmoe" and even, sometimes, by the nickname he bestowed upon me, "Paddy".

Your esteemed Secretary Ian Dickerson has requested that, as your favored author's only offspring, I introduce myself to you. With this objective in mind, allow me to briefly sketch "Life with Leslie" from this viewpoint.

My earliest recollections include summers spent at "Bramber", in Weybridge, where we camped out in the spacious back yard. Leslie would prepare gourmet picnics to be served in the play tent he'd erected for me. To occupy play hours when he retired to his massive study to 'write', fox terriers Winkie and Bozo provided entertaimnent for this 3 to 6 year old. During periods of childhood infirmities he would cheer me up with his wonderful imagination by decorating my bedroom walls with pastel renditions of Disney characters and make up fascinating stories.

These idyllic days came to an end as war clouds gathered, and in September 1939 my Simon Templar spirited me away to the safety of the USA. We sailed from Southampton on the Empress of Britain zig-zagging across the U-boat infested Atlantic. The Athenia, doing an opposite zig, was torpedoed in our wake and we took on board a number of her survivors.

We landed in Canada instead of the intended New York and trekked across country to Palm Springs (a hardly settled desert community) in California where we lived for 2 years. At this point success found our hero, or vice versa, and it was on to Hollywood in 1941. The rest is a part of his history with which you are all familiar. Some fifty-one years later I made a nostalgic return to that long time residence at West Norton Avenue (between Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards) and found our modest apartment still there, surprisingly in almost original condition.

Last Autumn 1 had the privilege of becoming better acquainted with Secretary Ian during several days that we spent pouring over manuscripts, letters, paper, pictures and general memorabilia that are part of the Leslie Charteris collection at the Mugar Memorial Library in Boston. Although this material still requires a lot of sorting and categorizing it certainly provides some choice and in-depth insight into Leslie Charteris, his life and times.

I now reside in Western Michigan with my husband of 41 years. We have three children, all scattered across the country. Each of them seem to have some writing talent inherited from Grampa Leslie's genes. One is on the editorial staff of a national magazine; another is still looking for a publisher for his fantasy science fiction stories and one novel, and the third writes lovely poetic cards for all special occasions. We all enjoyed my husband's Naval career and the travels that took us far and wide, especially when Leslie visited us in the Panama Canal Zone and Monterey, California. We are now retired and living the good life on a golf course.

I will now leave it to Ian to fill you in on annual dues, what is upcoming with a much talked about SAINT movie (I did catch Robert Evans on a recent talk show plugging his autobiography and giving frequent mention to the Saint) and Burl Barer's newest claim to fame.

To you all my best wishes for a Glorious Christmas and a most prosperous "Saintly" New Year.

Paddy Higgins,
Saint-in-Chief, The Saint Club