This week's Interesting Interview is with the man, the myth, the legend: Mark Alberstat. Mark and his wife JoAnn have been editing Canadian Holmes, the Journal of The Bootmakers of Toronto, for well over a decade. I love this journal and you can tell that the Alberstats focus on putting out a good quality product every three months. Mark will look familiar to most of us who were active during the Zoom boom of Sherlockiana, as he was a much sought after speaker for his many different talks on Arthur Conan Doyle and sports.
Canadians are known for their friendliness, and let me tell you, Mark fits that mold! He's published a few of my pieces in Canadian Holmes, and my interactions with him are always lovely. He's also a contributor to an upcoming anthology I'm co-editing and the emails between us have been just as great when our roles have been reversed. In fact, he's even nicer in those! Mark is a guy who loves to promote others, but doesn't promote himselfe enough as far as I'm concerned. So please take a few minutes today to appreciate a really great guy, Mark Alberstat!
How do you define the word “Sherlockian”?
I have a very loose definition of Sherlockian. For me it is anyone who enjoys the Sherlock Holmes stories. If that is in their original Strand form, great! If it is through BBC’s Sherlock, wonderful! If it is enjoying Brett’s interpretation on the character, superb! If it is spending six months researching and writing a scholarly article for Canadian Holmes or some other journal, more power to you! In our local club we have people who have 100s of books and we have some with fewer than a dozen. For me, they are all Sherlockians and friends. The more the merrier, the wider the better.
How did you become a Sherlockian?
I first came across the stories in my childhood by flipping the super thin pages of my Dad’s Doubleday 2-volume edition. I have a clear memory of being in grade school and bringing in the first volume for the teacher to read from to the class. I have a vague recollection that it was “A Scandal in Bohemia,” but a stronger memory of the teacher holding my Dad’s volume and reading about this detective with an odd name.
I read the stories, from those two volumes in my early teens, but when I was 15 or so I was in a used bookstore and stumbled across DeWaal’s World Bibliography. I was fascinated and surprised at all the entries and pleased to find that Doubleday edition. In the back there was a listing of Sherlockian societies. In those pre-internet days, I sat down and wrote to each one, in alphabetical order, and introduced myself and asked them what a Sherlockian society does. It was just my good fortune that one of the first societies to respond was The Brothers Three Moriarty run by John Bennett Shaw. That first letter from John sparked an almost monthly correspondence that lasted a decade or more. About five or six times a year John would also send me a manila envelope crammed full of Sherlockian clippings, journals, and almost anything else he could put inside. Thanks to these magical packages I soon realized what a wide world the Sherlockian one was. John also encouraged me to form a local club and, knowing I was a sports fan, to pursue that avenue as my specialty in the Sherlockian world.
What is your previous profession and does that affect how you enjoy being a Sherlockian?
I recently retired after 30 years in IT, most recently writing and maintaining provincial government websites. I am not sure the profession gave me any extra enjoyment as a Sherlockian but when I had to write some programs and create unique variable names, I did, on occasion, use Sherlockian references. There may still be small web-based programs running on the provincial website using variable names of Holmes, Watson and BakerStreet.
What is your favorite canonical story?
For this answer I have to cheat a little and name two, but let me explain why. My all time favourite to read and re-read is “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” Twisted Lip and twist at the end surprised me so much when I first read it the shock has stayed with me. Also, the thought of a journalist making more begging for pennies then on his set salary interested me enough, and who knows, may have helped me along to getting my degree in journalism and meeting JoAnn along the way.
The other story that I always have a fondness for is “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.” Picture yourself as a young teen, in a small Canadian city on the east coast of Canada, a few stones throw from the Atlantic ocean. You are reading the tales of the world’s most famous detective. He dashes around London, beating the criminals and sees through the Victorian fog. You begin to read Copper Beeches for the first time and in the opening few paragraphs you come across the name of the city where you are sitting. A thunderclap couldn’t have been louder in my mind. When I read: “I have been a governess for five years,” said she, “in the family of Colonel Spence Munro, but two months ago the Colonel received an appointment at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and took his children over to America with him..” I was amazed. Sherlock Holmes knows of Halifax? How could I not have this story as a favourite. There are also century-old copper beech trees in our neighbourhood.
Who is a specific Sherlockian that you think others would find interesting?
This is a difficult question to answer since editing a journal all these years we have come across so many interesting Sherlockians, some well known, some not so. However, I am going to suggest Mark Jones. Not only does he have a great first name, he is personable and writes a regular column on Conan Doyle’s non-Sherlockian works in The Strand for Canadian Holmes. Many Sherlockians will know Mark from the podcast he co-hosts with Paul M. Chapman, another name I could have easily featured in this answer, and cleverly just did! Mark’s knowledge of Conan Doyle’s works, influences and legacy makes his Doings of Doyle podcast a joy to listen to and an education at the same time.
What subset of Sherlockiana really interests you?
This is a tough question to answer as I have been a Sherlockian for so long my interests have changed. During my early days as a Sherlockian, and being a friend of John Bennett Shaw, collecting anything and everything related to Holmes was my focus. Any book, magazine, game, t-shirt or item that had a Sherlockian connection was brought into my collection. Because of those years my collection isn’t a large one on the international stage, but still dominates one room in our house. Many years later, after meeting more and more Sherlockians I realized my collection would never be a really large or important one and my interest shifted to writing and editing. Today I have a focus on Conan Doyle’s life with a particular interest on sports. Editing Canadian Holmes, however, can sometimes shift your interest for a while as you delve deeper into a topic on which an article has been proposed or submitted. The Sherlockian mine is a deep one and on any day I might follow a new vein.
What are some fond memories you have from your years of editing Canadian Holmes?
My wife JoAnn and I have been editing this quarterly journal for over 55 issues, that’s a lot of years and a lot of articles. Some years ago we started putting artwork from amateur artists on the cover. This has brought a bit more prominence to these artists. I take a lot of pleasure when I hear back from an artist about the positive responses they have had over their work being on our cover.
Working with prominent Canadian Sherlockians is always fun for a journal based in Canada but also making the journal an international one has also been rewarding. When you know your work is being read and enjoyed around the globe the hours and hours of work which goes into each 40-page issue seems to fall away.
You are known for your interest linking Arthur Conan Doyle to sports. What does research for combining those two topics look like?
A lot of the time, it looks like me at the computer searching and searching and searching newspaper archives, memoirs and sport histories. I believe that if we really want to know about the life of Conan Doyle we have to consider more than just his literary influences but also what he did and enjoyed day to day and without a doubt that is sport.
In 1999 I wrote to Dame Jean Conan Doyle and asked for some time to interview her about her father. From the reply I could tell she wasn’t that keen on it. When I mentioned that I wasn’t interested in talking about Sherlock Holmes but wanted to discuss her father and his love of sport, she agreed. What followed was a delightful conversation of her fond memories of an active and loving father. Of the long skis in the hallway and playing cricket on the lawn of their home. It was her interest in me wanting to tell that side of her father which assured me that I not only had the right topic for years of writing and research, but one that needed telling in a careful and detailed way.
When I am writing about ACD and baseball, cricket, cycling or any of the other topics I have written and researched about what I am really doing is contributing to our overall understanding of our favourite author. What made him place our dynamic duo on Baker Street? Certainly, it is in central London but it is also a short stone’s throw to Lord’s Cricket Ground. When he made Holmes a boxer, was he considering some of his own traits? This is a man who had a boxing ring built in his garage after all.
To know Conan Doyle, we have to understand his love and obsession with sport. It is a small niche but one I have found fun to dig into. After all, I also have a background as a sports reporter.
What book would you recommend to other Sherlockians?
With shelves and shelves of books it is difficult to lay my hand on just one to recommend, but if I had to, it would be Mattias Boström’s From Holmes to Sherlock. For me this book takes a unique view at a world that had been examined many times before. It is also a book which, I feel, exists because of the many books, articles and essays that went before it.
Mattias found a voice and an angle into our Sherlockian world which would interest even the most casual of Sherlockians, and could, with any luck, turn them into rabid, blog reading, podcast listening, meeting attending, researching Sherlockians who will then add to our world in their own way. I should also note that Mattias and I work together on the Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle in the Newspapers series of books published by Gasogene.
Where do you see Sherlockiana in 5 or 10 years from now?
I think our hobby is now on a curve of change, along with society. No longer do we have to attend far off conferences to hear this person or that person speak. We can stay home, turn on a Zoom meeting and meet Sherlockians from all over the world, hear their voices, see their faces and listen to their views on a wide variety of topics.
You no longer need deep pockets to fly here and there for a weekend of Sherlockian talks and fun. You can stay home and be just as well informed. You can reach out via email or social media and correspond with your favourite pastiche article, editor or writer.
I think in 5 or 10 years, many local clubs will have folded or morphed into occasional meetings of like-minded friends, and Sherlockians will find more and more ways to meet across the digital landscape.
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