`Miss Potter`?

Question

I don`t think she ever was called Miss Potter but Beatrix of Bea. A social reformer/a bit of a snob/a storyteller/a farmer. I stayed nearby to where she lived in the Lake District and actually in the 1980s met people who were alive when she was and who knew her.

Penelope Wilton was awfully good as BP. Why yet another film and with Zellwegger??????????

Answer 1

I too lived in the Lake District in the 60s and 70s and people who knew her were not always complimentary about her. She was a bit of a tartar and an eccentric. All the fluffy bunny stuff went back to her younger days. She was a very astute woman and her legacy was one of the wisest moves to preserve rural England at a time when the Lake District was still remote. The building of the M6 opened the area to speculative investments and some of the worse drawbacks of tourism. From the books I have read, her life was rather a sad one.

Her children's books, through very clever marketing and spin offs, have become an international phenomenon. It is interesting to note that the publishers of Allison Uttley who also had a success story on their hands in the 1950s with the "Little Grey Rabbit" books and the exquisite illustrations by Margaret Tempest, failed miserably at marketing her works in the same way. Some ravishing cartoons were shown on ITV, developed from the original drawings, but apparently Disney Studios pounced on them, bought them outright and they have never been seen since, which is very sad.
The videos made from Beatrix Potter's books were delightful.

I have not seen the film which you mention with Peneloppe Wilton, so I am all in favour of another being made. Who knows, it might throw a different light on her life. Anything that prolongs her popularity is a good thing. At the moment, it is slowly waning as modern children are accustomed to loud, brash and trash. It is grand parents and parents who buy her books out of sheer nostalgia, harking back to their childhood.
My years in the Lake District, before it became a tourist trap, were the happiest in my life, so I for one will be enchanted by an evocation of the Lakes, before they were spoilt by commercial enterprise, and the life of a very special lady.

Answer 2

I wonder if they'll ever make a film about Enid Blyton. I read somewhere that she liked playing tennis in the nude.

Answer 3

Money?